Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

-Thomas Jefferson
Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."

Richard Dawkins


"Leon Lederman, the physicist and Nobel laureate, once half-jokingly remarked that the real goal of physics was to come up with an equation that could explain the universe but still be small enough to fit on a T-shirt. In that spirit, Dawkins offered up his own T-shirt slogan for the ongoing evolution revolution:
Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators."

"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet."

Napoleon Bonaparte

The 3 Laws of Prediction by Arthur C. Clark
  1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
  2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
  3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Scrolling RSS News Ticker

Friday, April 11, 2008

Of OBC's and Arjun Singh

Perhaps the most ridiculous figure to emerge from the Indian political jungle (apart from Lalloo Prasad that is...but thats for another post), Arjun Singh, the Human Resource Minister, who's probably known for one issue (and is probably staking his Prime Ministerial ambitions on it...); the Other Backward Castes (OBCs) and his holy landish promise of 27% reservation for them in institutions of higher learning (IHLs). Ironically, a supposedly 'corrective solution' which was supposed to bring forward the so-called 'backward' castes in order to let them participate in the Grand Indian Economic Party, has had the opposite effect of sharply dividing the country; with proponents calling for his deification (Messrs Karunanidhi and his DMK are loyal I heard...) and opponents calling for a public lynching in the streets of Delhi........While Monsieur Singh's private motives are almost certainly suspect, one can't help but wonder if his proposal might actually work...the issue at hand is Would a person who obviously had a very poor primary and secondary education (since he/she would most probably gone to a public school, which in India are of horrific standards;and hence would lack the skills and ability to compete with the creme de la creme of India's finest students) be able to survive in an IIT/IIM which has one of the toughest admission criteria in the world? Would it not be better for Mr. Singh to try and revamp the public school system which woefully lacks resources or quality teaching staff; which in turn would churn out students of better calibre, who are able to gain admission on merit? If the good minister is still hell bent on his 27% quota, why not use the income level of a person as a parameter to reserve seats for him/her? Is there any reason why a person of a higher caste but a lower income level be more advantaged than a person of higher income but lower caste? The sad and sorry fact is that India still suffers from caste-ism, not of the malodorous form which existed a few decades ago, but of reverse casteism; OC's, OBC's and the other various acronyms describing India's teeming lower caste population are touted and courted by political fat cats like Mr. Singh who are not in the bit interested in their quality of life, but more in their votes. Which is a pity because in the end the good of the country is sacrificed for the temporal satisfaction of a few. Which brings us to another few issues; If IIT's and IIM's are truly among the best in the world, and that both of these institution are 100% home grown; why is it that the practices and policies that made these two insti's so awesome not applied to every other IHL? Why not turn every engineering college into an IIT, every management school into an IIM, every medical college into an AIIMS? Whats holding them back? Then we should not have to worry about reservations do we? Since every citizen would have a chance at quality education...And the unfortunate consequence of this sorry act by a man in the death throes of his political life further divides a country that's already divided along politico-religious, income , language, state and god-knows-what lines. And it is truly a tragedy when you just look at teeming potential that is India. Whats holding her back from truly taking her place in the world (Not just as an economic superpower but as a cultural and political superpower)? Her leaders and her people. As long as the people continue to be satisfied by loud mouthed politicians spewing anger and hot air and empty promises that promise nothing but freebies, for so long will India remain in China's shadow. You want a measure of India's political maturity? Just look at the DMK's manifesto: free TV, cheap rice, free electricity and god-knows-what...

PS: Just an thought..would our (India's) education system start churning out students like the one below if Mr. Singh has his way? Especially if students are admitted on the basis of their birth and not ability? A very very scary thought indeed........(nervous laughter) :P

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The man who has a dowry case filed against him by his daughter-in-law, the man who was once accused of running a fake lottery, has now decided the fate of the avant-garde educational initiative that helped propel India into a technology powerhouse.

Brand IIT, and along with it, the brand IIM will soon be diluted to a point where the average Raju - Ramu will soon be able to enter into an IIT by circumventing the meritocracy which was the heart of brainiacs!

Great!!!

May the good breed of politicans like ARJUN SINGH live long...