No reservations here for Royals?
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Another similarity is that when it comes to the marriage of their sons and daughters, the dalit and minority messiahs never look beyond the royalty. The latest is the report of the likely engagement and marriage of Mr. Arjun Singhâs grandson with the royal Nepal Rana family princess who was in the centre of controversy over the royal carnage that catapulted the present King on the throne. May the couple live in happiness and peace for ever!
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Who is this Karan Thapar?, he grilled Arjun Singh as if in an FBI investigation in that interview, when Hindus learn to grill anti Hindu f*kers like this then we will see some change.
Bloody hypocrites
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Anti-reservation stir has engulfed few selected cities in India. With the campaign being supported by saturated coverage from an unabashedly sympathetic media, a debate has again been activated between those who support reservation in educational institutions for lower castes and those who don't. Rahul Gandhi (the future statesman, as Congresspersons insist) has confessed it to be a complex issue with both sides having their valid points.
Considering the stature and influence of Sonia Gandhi, it is safe to conclude that the present UPA government headed by economist-bureaucrat Manmohan Singh takes its major policy decisions after receiving a nod and acknowledgement from her. However in this particular circumstance, it is believed that Human Resources Minister Arjun Singh kick-started the controversy on his own to set some personal political agenda. But even if this consideration is taken into account, the government has declared its intention of not reversing its decision on reservations.
Since this columnist votes for Sonia Gandhi's Congress (I), he inclines to believe that Mrs. Gandhi has chosen to agree with this assessment not out of political compulsions, but because she really desires for the uplift of that class of Indian society that has been consistently and aggressively denied the opportunities of a better life, for hundreds of generations.
The critics of reservation policy argue that instead of the present quick-fix and politically-profitable solution which comes as a disadvantage to meritorious high caste students, the government should increase expenditure in the presently pathetic primary school level. This would enable the children from disadvantaged backgrounds to develop their talents right from the early stages of their education, which they could later employ in holding their own while shaping their careers.
But the idea of reservations seems more worthy to this government, guided by the vision and leadership of Sonia Gandhi.
However a very disturbing development has taken place, which though not directly related to the reservation controversy, exposes the hypocrisy of the UPA government.
According to a minor news item of the Press Trust of India,<b> the Union Cabinet, on the night of 19th May, 2006, approved a monetary grant to Sanskriti School, a private institution run by wives of civil servants in Delhi. Announcing this after the Cabinet meeting, Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi said the grant was only a 'token support'. When probed further on the value of the 'token', he said that the grant could be Rs 2 to Rs 3 crore.</b>
Sanskriti School is one of the most uppity-elite educational institutions in Delhi. The wife of the serving Cabinet Secretary serves as the chairperson. It has a profile that was once exercised by the legendary Doon School in its glory days during the last century.
The most celebrated VIP child of Sanskriti School happens to be 6-years-old Rajiv Rehan Gandhi Vadra, grandson of Sonia Gandhi, son of Priyanka Gandhi, and nephew of Rahul Gandhi. <b>Some of the other celebrated students happen to be offspring of India's most powerful: Atal Behari Vajpayee, Amitabh Bachchan, Omar Abdullah, Home Minister Shivraj Patil, late President Shankar Dayal Sharma, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Rajiv Pratap Rudy etc. (In 2005, Samajwadi Party's controversial politician and known Sonia Gandhi baiter Amar Singh was denied admission for his twin daughters - Disha and Drishti; for reasons best known to the school establishment)</b>
According to its website http://sanskritischool.com/, Sanskriti was established in 1998 by the Civil Services Society. The Society was formed by the wives of the civil servants belonging to the various branches of Government of India.
Located in the lazy-leafy lanes of New Delhi's diplomatic district Chankayapuri, the school describes itself as a public service oriented NGO. The aim of the school's society is (apparently) to fulfill a 'felt need' in the city of Delhi - a requirement of schools offering quality education to wards of officers of All India and Central Services coming on transfer. Helpfully, students whose parents are in other services or professions may also apply.
It is not for this columnist to criticize the public servants for their intention in providing a good education to their children. But one does wonder the need to support such a school when there is already an institution in place that was created to satisfy just such a need. Back in November, 1962, the Government had approved the scheme of Kendriya Vidyalayas to cater to the educational needs to the children of the Central Government employees, who in exigency of their services are frequently transferred from one language area to the other. This is how the Kendriya Vidyalayas had come into existence.
So why did super-fancy Sanskriti School had to be established? Do Kendriya Vidyalayas lack in quality? Were the babus uncomfortable and suspicious of an institution that they themselves run?
If Sanskriti was merely a time pass enterprise by some bored housewives, then why the government of India thought it necessary to hold a cabinet meeting to provide funds to it?
Why couldn't this money be diverted to Kendriya Vidyalayas? Sanskriti School, in any case, is patronized by students from very rich families, so it can be assumed that it was not facing any emergency cash crunch.
Interestingly, Sanskriti has a very selective taste in admission procedures and is very sensitive to India's VIP culture. In a bomb scare in December, 2005, <span style='color:red'>children were evacuated in more than two batches, with the first batch belonging to the Very Important Families.</span>
So, is such a vulgar school, that classifies its students according to their VIP status, worthy of any public funding?
But the bigger question is that why Sonia Gandhi's government, which managed an upset win in the 2004 national elections on the votes of Aam Aadmi, has suddenly changed its colours? Why her government, which pretends to be so concerned about the future of unprivileged students, has willfully allowed the money that should had been spent in providing free education to children born in low castes be diverted to a richie-rich educational institution?
On one side UPA government is devising instant reservation plans to uplift the disadvantaged, while on the other hand its cabinet ministers meet at late night hours to dispose off few crores to schools where their privileged children study. Do the proponents of the affirmative action like to limit their measures only towards polices which mint votes? That they are not really interested in the well-being of India's oppressed?
Is the Government of India playing a farce in which apart from muddling the career options of the relatively better, it is also taking decisions which do not contribute to the upliftment of the truly unprivileged?
If Sonia Gandhi's heart really bleeds for propriety and correctness in public life, then she should either ask Manmohan Singh to withdraw the 'token' funds from the Sanskriti School or else she ought to stop Arjun Singh from shedding tears for the low caste students, who inevitably ends up as the prime victims of such scams where money needed for their education infrastructure is instead bribed to undeserving institutions.
And if Mrs. Gandhi is too much of a political coward, then she should be shameful enough to command her daughter to get Rajiv Rehan Gandhi Vadra out of that school.
Nothing less than that is acceptable.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Rajiv Rehan Gandhi Vadra <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Why this insecure family had to use all tags? Surprise, Nehru and Kaul is missing?
<b>Reservation to be implemented in letter and spirit: UPA, Left</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The UPA coordination committee and the Left Parties on Tuesday evening decided to implement the 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in higher educational institution in letter and spirit.
"The percentage of reservation for OBCs will be fixed at 27 per cent. Legislation for this purpose will be brought in Parliament in the monsoon session," Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters after a three-hour meeting.Â
Mukherjee said that after the law is passed by Parliament, reservation for <b>OBCs will be implemented in central education institutions from the academic session commencing from June 2007.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>PM lets down peers </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Knowledge takes a knocking ---- They are neither politicians nor MPs and their resignations will not destabilise the UPA Government in any way. Yet, the departure of Mr Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Mr Andre Beteille from the National Knowledge Commission is a distressing signal for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from what should have been his natural constituency - meritocratic, middle class academia. Insulted and humiliated by Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh, who publicly accused them of being ignorant of the Constitution and virtually suggested that they carried caste prejudices, Mr Beteille and Mr Mehta have put in their papers from the Prime Minister's showpiece panel. The Knowledge Commission, it may be recalled, was handpicked by the Prime Minister to design a blueprint for augmenting India's cerebral capacities, for effecting its grand transformation from an information society to a knowledge society. Built into its mandate was the need to ensure universal access to educational institutions, to craft a mechanism whereby economic and social disparities would not come in the way of specialised training and higher educational facilities. In a sense, Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh pre-empted the Knowledge Commission's recommendations by announcing 50 per cent reservations in the IITs and IIMs, and in Union Government run super-speciality medical colleges. Thus began the war between the Knowledge Commission and the HRD Minister who sees no merit in knowledge and celebrates mediocrity.
Much of this is of course well known. The immediate focus must, however, be on what one of the Knowledge Commission's beleaguered members has eloquently described as the Prime Minister's "silence". Mr Manmohan Singh has not, it would appear found the time to meet the members of a team he had personally put together, some of whom have been friends and colleagues for decades. He has no response to Mr Mehta's open charge that his Government "cares about tokenism more than social justice" and is hell-bent upon pushing through a "one size fits all" reservation regime for every institution in the country, from a non-descript school to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences. It is both a tragedy and an irony that India's 'most educated' Prime Minister should preside over a Government that is lacerating the sinews of the knowledge society. Here is a man who has come up the hard way solely because the Indian system made room for his scholarship to shine through despite personal economic hardship. Yet he allows a cynical politician, who cannot look beyond votes, sitting in Delhi's Shastri Bhawan, seat of the HRD Ministry, to throttle some of India's finest minds and hound them out of the Knowledge Commission. When a politician out to destroy India's potential simply because he subscribes to perverse vote-bank politics scoffs at intellectual accomplishment, there is little cause to be surprised. But when an apparently enlightened technocrat, one of the country's foremost public intellectuals, so let's down his peers, the sense of betrayal is far more greatly felt. In a sense, Mr Manmohan Singh has turned his back on the India he cherished and knew - as well as on the Manmohan Singh India cherished and knew. After such knowledge, what forgiveness?
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Any social trouble, and our NGOs are as happy as pigs in the mud and swing into action <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF PEOPLE'S MOVEMENTS
  c/o A wing, 1st Floor, Haji Habib Bldg.,NaigaonCross Rd., Dadar (E),
Mumbai-400014
  Phone 022-24150529, napmmumbai@..., sansahil@...,
medha@...
  Press Note/ May 21, 2006
  <b>RESERVATIONS WILL ADD TO EFFICIENCY, CREATIVITY</b> <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo--> : GOVT. SHOULD NOT BACKTRACK:
IMPLEMENT PAST POLICIES: CARE FOR NEEDY STUDENTS
  The People's Movements all over India demand that the Union government must implement the constitutional amendment to reserve the seats for the other
backward communities without any delay and see that all the earlier policies,
decisions assurances regarding the affirmative actions in favour of the
backward castes are implemented fully.
  We condemn the deliberate lethargy on part of governments regarding
implementing already approved policies of Mandal Commision recommendations.
Even now, thousands of seats in educational and  professional arena are not
filled - rather they are made 'open' for want of 'suitable candidates' from the
scheduled castes, scheduled tribes or backward classes. We demand that all the
unfilled seats must be filed with the due representation of the concerned
classes.
  With this we make a strong plea for strengthening the common school policy,
common technical and higher education policy and equipping them with quality
education, resources and due attention.  The newly introduced elitist streak in
the higher technical education should be abolished. There should be common
public institutions imparting finest quality technical and professional
education.  Â
The privatization and coprporatization of education and highly
technical profession must stop. They are being educated and employed on the
basis of public spending. So they must follow the wishes of the people of this
country. Therefore there should also be reservations for the backward classes
in private enterprises.
  For Efficiency and Creativity
  The policy of reservations for the deprived classes in the higher and
technical education and professions is an opportunity to add to the quality,
creativity and efficiency in the educational and professional fields. The
reservations must be seen not as 'doling out' something for the 'deprived
classes', but it is mark of adding to the experiences, creativity and Â
knowledge bases of various aspects in our public life. Over 70 percent of the
workforce in the country is not just manual laborers; they come with their own
intelligence, imaginativeness, innovations and resourcefulness. It would make
our productive processes and economy varied and richer. Just look at U.S. and
other countries where all sections of populations are brought in the vortex of
education, sports and  other professions. We have to be proud of the fact that
we would be much richer nation with the participation of such brains in our
social-economic activities in such a large and varied scale.
  From all these angles, it is high time that the private institutions,
industries and service sector also must be made to accept the reservation
policy. These industries will have to be made aware that they  operate in
India, and they will have to follow the Indian Constitution and law. If they
threaten to go outside India, let them go and we shall see whether they get
such subsidized water, land, cheap labour, pliant state elsewhere in the world.
These industrialists are not making any favor for the people; rather they
exploit the people and resources of this country. In this connection, we also
disapprove and will oppose the policies of creating 'special economic zones'
(SEZ), where no India laws would be applicable.
  Though we quite understand the apprehensions in the minds of the students and
professionals from the general categories regarding the narrowing space for
competition, that alone cannot be reason for opposing the reservations for the
hitherto backward communities.  The Union and concerned state governments
should initiate the steps as to help the poor and deprived students and
professionals in the general category.
  The unemployment and narrowing down the space for more employment and
educational opportunities is not due to the reservations of seats, but due to
the neo-liberal political economy that the ruling class in India has adopted in
collusion with the global capital. Even without the reservations, the
employment and education opportunities in various jobs in India are being Â
eroded and thousands of people are thrown out of existing jobs. We demand that
the Union and state governments must end the embargo on the jobs in the public
sector and should start thinking of creating more jobs.
  We appeal to the agitating students and professionals not to hold
reservations responsible for their anxiety and to understand the deeper
economic crisis we all have been thrown. We also expect the supporters of the
reservations to reason with the agitating students and take them along, caring
for their sensitivities and interests. The young student and professional
community must not be pitted against each other, who otherwise are the
harbinger of the future changes and struggle in this country. We have to
strengthen a united struggle against the common adversary in form of national
and multinational corporate and imperialist vested interests.
  <b>Medha Patkar</b>
  National Convenor
  Sanjay M.G.
  P. Chennaiah
  National Co-Convenors
  Sanjay Sangvai
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From next month anti-reservation momentum will pick up. Colleges and school admission will start.
At this moment government is ignoring everything. I hope UPA will get VP Singh type of slap in Day-light.
Why these jokers like Megha are entering in other agenda?
<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+May 23 2006, 06:44 PM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ May 23 2006, 06:44 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->
Why these jokers like Megha are entering in other agenda?
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Anything karega for a revolution basically..
Although I am not as optimistic even after a change of govt. Fact is as GS said its a game of numbers - SC/ST/OBC have numbers and there is no running away from that. I doubt if BJP can do anything about this (besides showing sympathy).
05-24-2006, 09:36 AM (This post was last modified: 05-24-2006, 05:09 PM by G.Subramaniam.)
Realistically the only options for upper castes is emigration or conversion
In the meantime, divert your charitable contributions to your caste.
Upper castes have neither the armed force nor the numbers
the most they can do is to run a non-acrimonious education campaign
Affirmative action is like socialism, it retards efficiency
Each society has to decide where to draw the line on efficiency
Just as after 1991, socialism slowly got dumped in India, there may come a time when quotas get dumped
Every country has affirmative action
Malaysia, Africa, US etc
The fact is that the bulk of the backward castes do not benefit from reservations
Only their creamy layer does. And the unfortunate fact is that, I once read an
interview, most backward castes get their jollies from watching a share of the loot go to their castemen
I think reservation will future divide India, They are encouraging discrimination. Next step will be reservation in private job. Where is motivation for reserved quota candidate to excel?
<b>Anti-quota stir: Medicos call for civil disobedience</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"We are asking various groups such as traders, resident welfare associations, bank personnel and members of bar associations not to work on Thursday from 9 am to 12 noon," Dr Vinod Patro, president of AIIMS Resident Doctors' Association, said.
The move is being supported by the Delhi Medical Association and the Indian Medical Association.
The DMA would also organise a "dharna" at AIIMS on Thursday between 11 am and 5 am to support the medicos' agitation.
Patro said medicos were planning to organise a "Delhi Chalo" rally on May 28. Efforts were being made to garner support from all over the country for this rally.
The rally is likely to be organised from Ramlila Maidan to Jantar Mantar.
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Paswan group is forcing his people to sabotage agitation and some other Yadav group is in favor of agitation.
<b>Now, striking medicos get 'sponsors'</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Supporters of the agitation - from the common man to pharmaceutical companies - are now stepping forth to âsponsorâ expenditure incurred during the protest. Resident doctors who have been on strike for the last eight days say sponsorship will help them sustain the movement.
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<b>Kalam appeals to medical students to end strike</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Earlier, as the impasse over reservation in elite educational institutions continued, the issue figured prominently at a meeting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had with President APJ Abdul Kalam in New Delhi.
During the meeting, which lasted for 30 minutes, Manmohan Singh is understood to have briefed Kalam on various aspects of the raging controversy over quota for OBC in the institutions.
The meeting came close on the heels of Manmohan's appeal to striking resident doctors and medical students to withdraw their agitation.
The Prime Minister had received a report by the three- member Group of Ministers which suggested increasing the number of seats as also the institutions so that the interests of general category students are not affected.
Kalam has maintained that the total number of seats should be increased to make reservation irrelevant.
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Now time had come to open caste based medical and engneering colleges. Atleast Brahmins can call themselves minority and can give 100% seats to upper caste.
Spineless Idiot PM of India and Gadhha Singh will keep minority insitution for exclusive club.
<b>IIM students oppose new quotas</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In a show of strength, student councils of all six Indian Institutes of Managements (IIMs) on Wednesday opposed additional caste-based quotas in higher education institutions.
Expressing their solidarity with striking medicos across the country, council leaders of the premium B-schools urged the central government to desist from reserving an additional 27 per cent of seats for other backward castes (OBCs) from the next academic year.
<b>"Increase in the quota system by another 27 per cent for OBCs will not serve the cause of higher education. Similarly, increasing seats in the general category will not resolve the issue without commensurate availability of infrastructure and teaching faculty,"</b> the council leaders said in a joint statement in Bangalore.
...............................
<b>Students turn down Kalam's appeal</b>
Meanwhile, medicos on Wednesday cranked up their agitation despite an appeal by President APJ Abdul Kalam to end their hunger strike and called "civil disobedience" by professionals and traders on Thursday after the UPA government chose to go ahead with quotas for OBCs in higher education.
<b>Politics of sympathy</b>
<i>The lack of concern shown by ministers to the doctorsâ strike betrays a moral bankruptcy </i>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The two distinctly differing stances by the UPA government to the NBA agitation, on the one hand, and that of the medical students, on the other, reflect the cynicism of its political practice. It is testimony, if indeed such testimony is required, of its general moral and intellectual bankruptcy. Every political stance it takes, every public espousal it makes, is carefully weighed in the scales of electoral acceptability. Since the anti-reservations position lacks resonance in terms of crass vote bank politics, its votaries are given no quarter at all. Such expediency cannot make for the integrated political vision and inclusive governance that a country as large and variegated as India demands.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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