With great power...

..comes opportunity to cause great harm; as has been shown time and time again throughout history. However, it takes courage to shoot yourself in the leg when you are doing well in the race. I am sure most of the people who read this are aghast at Arjun Singh's amendment to the constitution. Apart from the obvious losers - meritorius students, no one really benefits from the move. Maybe a politician or two can hawk it for more votes.

- Over the last couple of years the Indian economy has been booming. India is finally becoming competitive on a global scale. Unlike China, whose selling point is labor, India's selling point is knowledge. There are a large number of educated people in India, who are willing to work for much less than their American counterparts. Sitting in Bangalore, Wipro and Infosys are able to compete globally. Boundaries are steadily fading, and what you can do counts for a whole lot more than who you are. Over the next few years there will be a lot of scope for enterpreunerial activity. In the US, startup activity pushed by the top .1% of the population has created jobs and wealth for the remaining 99.9%. Unless you are willing to promote this top 0.1% the remaining 99.9% aren't going to benefit. I can see the same happening in India. Dividing the country on caste lines is probably as regressive as you can get.

- Life is unfair. Face it. Money attracts more money. Talent attracts more talent. The guy in the Ferrari gets the townhouse and the pretty girl. 90% of Nobel Prizes go to professors from about 5-6 universities. These universities are consistently able to attract top talent simply because of the brand created due to previous generations of top talent. It takes a while to get there, but it's a position of strength. Harvard has an endowment of $5+ billion. Thats more than India's Education budget (spanning all levels from primary school to univesity). It produces a steady stream of highly successful individuals who come back to contribute to it. IITs are close to that now. Many of it's graduates from the 70's and 80's are in positions of power and wealth, and many have chosen to contribute monetarily, or come back and teach. An arbitrary reservation system would alienate it's alumni, as well as having repurcussions 20 years down the line when it's current students are probably not as successful as they should be.

- Though, it might come as a shock, the IITs, in the past have had a reservation for rich, yes rich, students. It was through this program called DASA - Direct Admissions for Students Abroad. NRI kids who score above 1400 on the SAT were allowed in. The only downer was that they had to pay about $8000 a year, about 10 times what most of the others paid paid. Surprisingly, once they got in, many either left in a semester or two, or remained to get massacred. They totally lacked the background to compete with those who got in through the JEE. They end up taking jobs they would have got even if they hadn't made it through IIT. They would have been better off paying a bit more and going to the US for their studies. A similar thing happens to those that get in through the SC/ST reservation system. With the introduction of the 50% reservation this phenomenon is going to be taken to an absurd level. The top half of the class is going to be way smarter, simply because the same position is so much harder to get. The bottom half of the class is going to be way weaker, simply because the standards are so much laxer for them. There is going to be a large variance of skill. A Professor catering to one half of the class, would leave the other half in a bad position.

- Also, even if this were a legitimate move to help 'backward' students, I really haven't seen the system work till now. Most of the 'backward' students who get in happen to be quite well off. I think the real bias is towards urban and rural. Students in urban communities have better opportunties to prepare for the exam than rural students. This is something I feel should be addressed.

- Rather than lowering the bar it makes more sense to teach the same 'backward' segments to jump higher. Why not give 10000 scholarships to gifted SC/ST/OBC students every year, give them the best possible academic training, and get them to write the same exam.

- This affair also raises the question of equality. How is it to be interpreted? Do all people have an equal right to opportunity or outcome? Meaning, do all people have an equal right to write the Joint Entrance Exam or get a seat in the IITs. The two are very different exam.

- A story that most comes to mind is of the duck that laid golden eggs. It wasn't a good idea for the farmer to cut it open.

There are some interesting articles that I have come across over the last few days.
Karan Thapar interviews Arjun Singh
M Balakrishnan, Professor, IIT Delhi
Photos of Police Violence Against Students- SHOCKING!!

PS: Though, I have been self-absorbed enough to speak only of the IITs, I was referring to other educational institutions as well. I would be loathe to have my heart operated upon by a doctor with dubious skills!
PPS: There is an E-Petition doing the rounds. I am tempted to provide a link to it, but somehow I feel it is pointless. I really don't think anyone is going to give a rats ass about it :).