Reservation, Quota and me

This one it to find the answer of the question 'Do reservations of any form serve any purpose? Or are they good for nothing?'

Assumption: To excel one needs a minimum level of self-motivation and determination.

A greedy approach tells me that for the nation to move ahead at good pace we can't give the reins to anyone less than the best. But, i am yet to prove that greedy works in this case.

Let's see what will help the nation in a longer-run. I think that we need to increase this number of 'self motivated' lot (we have very few of them when compared to the total population of India). Most of the population is locked-in the rural/slums/poverty.

Most of us get motivated through our parents/relatives/neighbors or the environment around us. In short, we all have a social network which affects/motivates us. But, there are lot many groups in our country which are completely isolated and their members have no direct link to any well-educated/informed person to get motivated from (I will call this lot the unprivileged lot and others the privileged ones). It is here that I feel that we need to plant some people to generate the motivation. This can be achieved through various measures. It can be outsiders (like teachers/ngo's/social workers) or insiders (someone from the same group who has been uplifted/trained by govt help). These people can serve as mentors to many budding and promising talents and will thereby increase the size of the talent-basket (the basket which caters to iit's/aiims/isro/civil services/politics/judiciary etc).

In my opinion reservation can help in developing some of these mentors. The people from the privileged lot aren't expected to have that kind of feedback effect, as most of the members of this group are well connected and receive feedback from various sources. Being at a certain level an uplifted people from unprivileged lot are certain to have some foresight (far better than what a average person in group has) which can be of immense help to people in their social contact. They may include their own children, relatives, neighbors and many others. Say, for example a shepherd's son gets selected in the local engineering college and becomes a engineer using the reserved seat. He may not prove to be the best student of the college but there is a high probability of him proving to be a good feedback mechanism to the social group he belongs to. There will be a spurt of students aspiring to be him or may be better him.

Seems, this can create a revolution in the village, but there's a catch. If the person doesn't really belong to such an isolated group or if he doesn't have any ties with such isolated social groups, the effects would be minimal. Therefore, we need to identify the groups carefully. Prima-facie it seems that the correlation of the isolation levels with the poverty is very high and it's safe to assume that poor social groups are more likely to be more isolated.

I will continue on this and try to find out various ways to identify groups, their economic levels.

Reservation/Quota/Mandal: My point of view

Yesterday, the indian govt decided to go ahead with implementing 27% reservation for other backward classes (obc). It adds to the already existing 22.5% of reserved seats for SC/ST.

Providing these quota/reservation is thought of as a way to improve the condition of masses. But, I don't get the sense to implement them in the elite schools like IIT's/IIM's/AIIMS, the ones which are pioneers and are meant to groom few extraordinary talents. They are the face of India. They are the ones who have the responsibility to hold the flag for India. How can we afford to give it to anybody less than the best? The logic of increasing the seats would be kind of diluting the quality and reduce the talent grooming. (See an article by Prof. M. Balakrishnan).

I am not extremely against reservation on caste lines as long as we are not able to implement some other better parameters. But, we need to keep in mind the motto with which these institutes have been set-up. They are there to groom some promising talents who can achieve something big for the society rather than to provide education to masses. Even the performance of reserved category candidates haven't been very wonderful (See Karan vs Arjun). To accomodate those few who are really talented but couldn't fare well because of some disadvantes we can have small quota but a quota as huge as 50% in iit's/iim's/aiims completely defeats their motto of being there.

I propose to have three to four category of universities (say A, B, C and D). We can have a varying amount of quota in these univ's (say 50% for D, 25% for C, 12.5% for B and 5% for A). This grading would enable A grade univ's to strive for world-class products. Also, as a medium/long term strategy we need to work on three points.

1. Try to evolve a parameter other than based on caste lines (preferably some economic)
2. Push the quota system towards the early stages of education and free the higher education from it eventually. Post-graduate studies should be freed from any kind of quota/reservation from today only.
3. Most important of all we need many more institutions in all the above-mentioned categories.

I don't know if this is all but this is what i currently think and i am ever-ready for discourse/debate and even ready for change of thought. Do drop by some suggestions or any link to any article/book you feel i need to go through.

Dear Prime Minister

Source: http://in.news.yahoo.com/060522/48/64gir.html

Dear Prime Minister

I write to resign as Member-Convener of the National Knowledge Commission. I believe the Commission's mandate is extremely important, and I am deeply grateful that you gave me the opportunity to serve on it. But many of the recent announcements made by your government with respect to higher education lead me to the conclusion that my continuation on the commission will serve no useful purpose.

The Knowledge Commission was given an ambitious mandate to strengthen India's knowledge potential at all levels. We had agreed that if all sections of Indian society were to participate in and make use of the knowledge economy, we would need a radical paradigm shift in the way we thought of the production, dissemination and use of knowledge. In some ways this paradigm shift would have to be at least as radical as the economic reforms you helped usher in more than a decade ago. The sense of intellectual excitement that the commission generated stemmed from the fact that it represented an opportunity to think boldly, honestly and with an eye to posterity. But the government's recent decision (announced by Honorable Minister of Human Resource Development on the floor of Parliament) to extend quotas for OBCs in central institutions, the palliative measures the government is contemplating to defuse the resulting agitation, and the process employed to arrive at these measures are steps in the wrong direction. They violate four cardinal principles that institutions in a knowledge based society will have to follow: they are not based on assessment of effectiveness, they are incompatible with the freedom and diversity of institutions, they more thoroughly politicise the education process, and they inject an insidious poison that will harm the nation's long-term interest.

These measures will not achieve social justice. I am as committed as anyone to two propositions. Every student must be enabled to realise his/her full potential regardless of financial or social circumstances. Achieving this aim requires radical forms of affirmative action. But the numerically mandated quotas your government is proposing are deeply disappointing, for the following reasons. First, these measures foreclose any possibility of more intelligent targeting that any sensible programme should require. For one thing, the historical claims of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and the nature of the deprivations they face are qualitatively of a different order than those faced by Other Backward Castes, at least in North India. It is plainly disingenuous to lump them together in the same narrative of social injustice and assume that the same instruments should apply to both. It is for this reason that I advocated status quo for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes until such time as better and more effective measures can be found to achieve affirmative action for them.

Some have proposed the inclusion of economic criterion: this is something of an improvement, but does not go far enough. What we needed, Honorable Prime Minister, was space to design more effective mechanisms of targeting groups that need to be targeted for affirmative action. For instance, there are a couple of well-designed deprivation indexes that do a much better job of targeting the relevant social deprivations and picking out merit. The government's action is disappointing, because you have prematurely foreclosed these possibilities. In foreclosing these possibilities the government has revealed that it cares about tokenism more than social justice. It has sent the signal that there is no room for thinking about social justice in a new paradigm.

As a society we focus on reservations largely because it is a way of avoiding doing the things that really create access. Increasing the supply of good quality institutions at all levels (not to be confused with numerical increases), more robust scholarship and support programmes will go much further than numerically mandated quotas. When you assumed office, you had sketched out a vision of combining economic reform with social justice. Increased public investment is going to be central to creating access opportunities. It would be presumptuous for me to suggest where this increased public investment is going to come from, but there are ample possibilities: for instance, earmarking proceeds from genuine disinvestment for education will do far more for access than quotas. We are not doing enough to genuinely empower marginalised groups, but are offering condescending palliatives like quotas as substitute. All the measures currently under discussion are to defuse the agitation, not to lay the foundations for a vibrant education system. If I may borrow a phrase of Tom Paine's, we pity the plumage, but forget the dying bird.

Second, the measures your government is contemplating violate the diversity principle. Why should all institutions in a country the size of India adopt the same admissions quotas? Is there no room at all for different institutions experimenting with different kinds of affirmative action policies that are most appropriate for their pedagogical mission? How will institutions feel empowered? How will
creativity in social justice programmes be fostered, if we continue with a "one size fits all" approach? Could it not be that some state institutions follow numerically mandated quotas, while others are left free to devise their own programmes? The government's announcement is deeply disappointing because it reinforces the cardinal weakness of the Indian system: all institutions have to be reduced to the same level.

Third, and related to diversity, is the question of freedom. As an academic I find it to be an appalling spectacle when a group of ministers is empowered to come up with admissions policies, seat formulas for institutions across the country. While institutions have responsibilities and are accountable to society, how will they ever
achieve excellence and autonomy if basic decisions like who they should teach, what they should teach, how much they should charge are uniformly mandated by government diktat? As you know, more than anyone else, the bane of our education institutions is that politicians feel free to hoist any purpose they wish upon them: their favourite ideology, their preferred conception of social justice, their idea of representativeness, or their own men and women. Everything else germane to a healthy academic life and effective pedagogy becomes subordinate to these purposes. Concerned academics risked a good deal, battling the previous government's instrumental use of educational institutions for ideological purposes. Though your objectives are different, your government is sending a similar message about our institutions: in the final analysis, they are playthings for politicians to mess around with. Nations are not built by specific programmes, they are built by healthy institutions, and the process by which your government is arriving at its decisions suggests contempt for the autonomy and integrity of academic life. Your government has reinforced the very paradigm of the state's relations with educational institutions that has weakened us.

In this process, the arguments that have been coming from your government are plainly disingenuous. It is true that a constitutional amendment was hastily passed to overturn the effects of the Inamdar decision. At the time I had written that the decision was property rights decision that was trying to unshackle private institutions from an overbearing state. But since the state had already displaced its
responsibilities to the private sector it decided that the ramifications of Inamdar would be too onerous and passed a constitutional amendment. One can quibble over whether this amendment was justified or not. But even in its present form it is only an enabling legislation. It does not require that every public institution has numerically mandated quotas for OBCs. To hear your government consistently hiding behind the pretext of the constitutional amendment is yet another example of how we are foreclosing the fine distinctions that any rigorous approach to access
and excellence requires.

Finally, I believe that the proposed measures will harm the nation's vital interests. It is often said that caste is a reality in India. I could not agree more. But your government is in the process of making caste the only reality in India. Instead of finding imaginative solutions to allow us to transcend our own despicable history of inequity, your government is ensuring that we remain entrapped in the caste paradigm. Except that now by talking of OBCs and SC/STs in the same narrative we are licensing new forms of inequity and arbitrariness.

The Knowledge Economy of the twenty-first century will require participation of all sections of society. When we deprive any single child, of any caste, of relevant opportunities, we mutilate ourselves as a society and diminish our own possibilities. But, as you understand more than most, globalisation requires us to think of old objectives in new paradigms: the market and competition for talent is global, institutions need to be more agile and nimble, and there has to be creativity and diversity of institutional forms if a society is to position itself to take advantage the Knowledge Economy. I believe that the measures your government is proposing will inhibit achieving both social justice and economic well-being.

I write this letter with a great deal of regret. In my colleagues on the Knowledge Commission you will find a group that is unrivalled in its dedication, commitment and creativity, and I hope you will back them in full measure so that they can accomplish their mission in other areas. I assure you that the commission's functioning will suffer no logistical harm on account of my departure.

I recognise that in a democracy one has to respectfully accede to the decisions of elected representatives. But I also believe that democracies are ill-served if individuals do not frankly and publicly point out the perils that certain decisions may pose for posterity. I owe it to public reason to make my reasons for resigning public. I may be wrong in my judgment about the consequences of your government's decisions, but at this juncture I cannot help concluding that what your government is proposing poses grave dangers for India as a nation. On this occasion I cannot help thinking about the anxieties of a man who knew a thing or two about constitutional values, who was more rooted in politics than any of us can hope to be, and who understood the distinction between statesmanship and mere politics: Jawaharlal Nehru. He wrote, "So these external props, as I may call them, the reservations of seats and the rest, may possibly be helpful occasionally, but they produce a false sense of political relation, a false sense of strength, and, ultimately therefore, they are not so nearly important as real educational, cultural and economic advance which gives them inner strength to face any difficulty or opponent."Since your government continues to abet a politics of illusion, I cannot serve any useful purpose by continuing on the Knowledge Commission under such circumstances.

Karan vs Arjun

Source: http://youthcurry.blogspot.com/2006/05/karan-vs-arjun.html
Author: Rashmi Bansal (http://youthcurry.blogspot.com)

Have mouth, will speak to TV channel. Last night, Ram Vilas Paswan spoke and this is the new angle he's added to the reservation imbroglio:

The population of SCs at the time of Independence was 15% and STs 7.5%, that's why reservation for them was fixed at 22.5%. Now their population has grown. SCs are 16.8% and STs 8%, so the reservation for SCs/ STs must be enhanced accordingly.

Wow. This reminds me of a recent observation made by Pratap Bhanu Mehta, one of the two members of the Knowledge Commission who resigned yesterday:

Reservations have become a substitute for “real cultural, educational and economic advance”, a cheap way of displaying your commitment to justice while you connive in every way possible to make sure that the conditions that produce grievous injustice are not really overcome.

Do read the letter Mehta wrote to the PM: I resign from Knowledge Commission as your govt abets a politics of illusion

Quotas
for OBCs in central institutions ...violate four cardinal principles
that institutions in a knowledge based society will have to follow:
- they are not based on assessment of effectiveness
- they are incompatible with the freedom and diversity of institutions
- they more thoroughly politicise the education process
- they inject an insidious poison that will harm the nation’s long-term interest.
Mehta
goes on to say that numerically mandated quotas are deeply
disappointing because they foreclose any possibility of more
intelligent targeting that any sensible programme should require.
Secondly, that you can't lump OBCs in the same category as SC/ STs
whose historical deprivation is of an altogether different magnitude.

And the government's own figures show that.

Whose numbers are they anyways
Any
plan to 'correct' an imbalance must stem from evidence that such an
imbalance really exists. Are OBCs truly under represented in industry?

This exchange

between CNN IBN's Karan Thapar and Minister of Industry and Commerce,
Kamal Nath tells you just how clueless the government is!

Karan Thapar:
You have clearly established the government's position. How do you know
that corporate India isn't doing what you are asking for? Companies
like Hindustan Lever, Ashok Leyland and Bajaj Auto say that even today
more than 50 per cent of their staff comes from SCs/STs and OBCs. If
that is the case then they are doing what you want.

Kamal Nath:
So if they are doing it then they should say please enforce it because
they are already doing it. Then why should anybody resist it?

Karan Thapar: It
is not just the three companies that I mentioned. The President of CII
R Seshasayee says that the majority of companies in the manufacturing
sector already employ up to 35 per cent of their work force from
backward classes.

Kamal Nath: Problem is
solved...If they are saying that we are already doing it then they
should in fact come to government and say make it mandatory because
they have to do nothing more.

Karan Thapar:... So did you not know the position?

Kamal Nath: We
know the position but.... If you see our growth in the last 10 years
has been very largely urban centric and let me tell you this for
districts, like my own districts in Chhindwara, why the growth. So I am
not going to look at the urban centres. I am going to look at the
districts of my country.

When you can't answer the question
- side step it! Mr Kamal Nath, I too employ close to 25 people but
never once have I stopped to ask which caste/ class they are from. If
you suit the job profile, you get it.

Now if there are
no jobs in rural areas are private sector employers in urban areas to
somehow blame for that? And not the government - which can ensure
neither 24 hour electricity nor decent roads or other infrastructure
crucial to those who may actually wish to set up indsutries in those
parts.

There's more ...

Karan Thapar:

You say you want facts and figures...The NSSO 1999, which is the most
recent of the NSSO studies available, conclusively shows that the share
of SCs, STs and OBCs in employment is exactly proportional to their
share of the population.

Kamal Nath: So what is the problem. What is the point...?

Karan Thapar:
The reason why this issue emerges is because the Prime Minister at the
CII conference in April specifically called upon industry to make
itself more representative of Society... I am now saying it to you that
not only these industries already doing it but your figures NSSO 1999
prove that there are. So there was no need for the Prime Minister to
make this call.

Kamal Nath: My context is that
growth and development is to be all inclusive. You take one district
and you say this is happening. Is it happening everywhere?

Karan Thapar: Yes these NSSO figures are nationwide.

Kamal Nath: Your figures are inaccurate.

Karan Thapar: They are not my figures, they are your figures.

Kamal Nath: That's what you are saying.

Karan Thapar:

They are the national sample survey figures 1999. They are available
from the government. They are authenticated by the government. They are
disseminated by the government.

Kamal Nath: That's what you are saying.

Karan Thapar: That's not what I am saying, that's what the government is saying.

Kamal Nath: That's what you are saying what the government is saying. That's not what I am saying and that's not what NSSO saying.

Normally, I would not just quote on and on on from a single interview but I think this one is priceless.

Karan Thapar: When you distrust the NSSO figures ....

Kamal Nath: I am not distrusting NSSO figures. Do you think the government is off its head? We have been winning elections.

Ah,
and that is what this whole reservation business is about in the first
place! After more such senseless banter, Kamal Nath finally concedes
that the way to get industry to set up shop in the 124 districts with
over 40% SC/ ST population is to incentivise them.

And yet,
just yesterday, Ms Meira Kumar, Union Minister for Social Justice,
reiterated yesterday that reservations must be effected by private
sector employers...

Arjun Singh in the Hot Seat
And finally, another brilliant interview on CNN IBN by Karan Thapar - this time with the man himself.

Karan Thapar:

...Do you know what percentage of the Indian population is OBC? Mandal
puts it at 52 per cent, the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO)
at 32 per cent, the National Family and Health Survey at 29.8 per cent,
which is the correct figure?

Arjun Singh: I
think that should be decided by people who are more knowledgeable. But
the point is that the OBCs form a fairly sizeable percentage of our
population.

Karan Thapar: No doubt, but the
reason why it is important to know 'what percentage' they form is that
if you are going to have reservations for them, then you must know what
percentage of the population they are, otherwise you don't know whether
they are already adequately catered to in higher educational
institutions or not.

Arjun Singh: That is obvious - they are not.

Karan Thapar: Why is it obvious?

Arjun Singh: Obvious because it is something which we all see.

Karan Thapar:
Except for the fact that the NSSO, which is a government appointed
body, has actually in its research in 1999 - which is the most latest
research shown - that 23.5 per cent of all university seats are already
with the OBCs. And that is just 8.5 per cent less than what the NSSO
believes is the OBC share of the population. So, for a difference of 8
per cent, would reservations be the right way of making up the
difference?

Arjun Singh: I wouldn't like to go
behind all this because, as I said, Parliament has taken a view and it
has taken a decision, I am a servant of Parliament and I will only
implement.

Karan Thapar: Absolutely,
Parliament has taken a view, I grant it. But what people question is
the simple fact - Is there a need for reservations? If you don't know
what percentage of the country is OBC and if, furthermore, the NSSO is
correct in pointing out that already 23.5 per cent of the college seats
are with the OBC, then you don't have a case in terms of need.

Arjun Singh: What do you mean by college seats?

Karan Thapar: University seats, seats of higher education.

Arjun Singh: Well, I don't know I have not come across that so far.

Jo
bhi ho bhai, ek din hum subah uthey, dimaag mein khayaal aaya. And now,
we are going to go ahead with our scheme. The decision is final.

Taaliyan, please
For
Karan Thapar. Because he asked the tough questions and pushed for
answers. Few on Indian television are capable of it. Most are so ill
informed, it hurts to watch!

Since Thapar mainly interviews
politicians, and I have little interest in politics, I don't tune into
his interviews that often. But when I see him in action he reminds me
of a barracuda.

In this case he well and truly sunk his teeth into soft political flesh. And gave us a taste of how weak and insipid it is.

OBC Reservations: An IIT Faculty Member's View

Prof. M. Balakrishnan,Dept. of Computer Science, IIT Delhi

Nearly six decades after independence, this country is planning to announce that majority of its population is backward and does not have equal opportunity to pursue education and employment. Along with this, it is going to open up a Pandora's Box by various caste groups to be classified as "backward". What an interesting way to begin the 21st century when finally India was beginning to emerge as a serious player in the new knowledge economy! The major carrot that is being doled out is the seats in the elite medical, engineering and management Institutes. What bothers me is no one is interested in even consulting the people who have built these Institutions and brought them to this stature. I have strong views on efficacy of reservations in general but here I would confine myself to the issues concerning IITs. At least here with my three decade long association, I can claim to know something. Many of these arguments may be applicable to the other elite Institutions in medical and management disciplines as well.

Today IITs are considered excellent educational institutions. There is a countrywide scramble to get into these with many students spending the best part of their teen years in preparing for its entrance examinations. This should not be confused with ranking of universities where just a couple of IITs make it in the top 500. These rankings deal primarily with the research output and not with the quality of undergraduate education. I can confidently say that any ranking of quality of undergraduate engineers produced would put IITs in the top 20 worldwide if not in the top 10. And it is this achievement that is going to be hard to maintain with the proposed reservations policy. Before we go any further, it would be best to examine how this excellence has been achieved.

The fundamental contribution that the Central Government has made to these institutions is in generous funding (by Indian, not global standards) combined with unmatched autonomy. The main point of engagement between the Government and these Institutions has been through the appointment of Directors. Except for a brief period during the last administration, the Governments had refrained from any major politicking in these appointments. They have by and large appointed the best available applicant Professor from the same or another IIT for the job. These venerable people had themselves a great pride in these Institutions and have ran the Institutes with the best of their abilities (maybe not always efficiently but always fairly) without major vested interest.

For someone outside IITs to understand the power of this position is not easy. The Director virtually appoints the complete senior administration including the deputy directors and deans, chairs all the faculty selections including that for the Professors, is the chairman of the senate and thus the academic head, is the financial head and also the administrative head. For most people living in the campus, which includes 90% of faculty and students, he is also the chairman of the local municipality (all major complaints on water, electricity, sewage etc. would reach him). This ensures that the buck almost always stops with him and thus decision making is unavoidable. This autonomy that has been the hallmark of these institutions is being eroded. There were attempts in the last Government (fortunately not vigorously pursued) to tell IITs what to teach. The present decision would strike at the fundamentals of IITs as the Government no longer feels whom to teach and how many to teach is best decided by these Institutions themselves. This in my opinion is the most dangerous fallout as it strikes at the very core of the success of these Institutions. Once the lines of control gets blurred, there would be no stopping, as today's political functioning is clearly not dictated by long term vision. Soon we could have reservations in faculty and create a caste based patronage system which has destroyed many of the once excellent state universities.

In IITs, the faculty selected and promoted solely based on merit has maintained a high standard of ethical behavior, have taken their teaching and research seriously, refrained from politicking themselves and supported the Institute in many ways to fulfill its commitments. Who are these faculty members? A large number are our own alumni (undergraduates as well as postgraduates), majority of them have studied or conducted research in the west and almost all of them have had opportunities of pursuing financially much more lucrative careers in India and abroad. Thus each faculty member is here by choice and he/she has exercised that choice with one major attraction - opportunity to teach, interact and work with extremely bright students perhaps unmatched anywhere. It is this attraction that is being tampered with. In a situation where all IITs are short of faculty and desperately trying to innovate to attract faculty under the constraints of the pay commission dictated salaries (while competing with Sensex based salaries), this is not a pleasant development.

IITs have had reservations for SC/STs for decades. Why would this be different? Aren't these students likely to be better prepared than the students admitted under the existing reserved category? Here I would like to share some of the facts with the readers. IITs have been admitting SC/ST students for years under two modes. From the general category, a significantly lower JEE cutoff is decided and reserved category students scoring above this cutoff are admitted directly to the UG programmes. Another still lower cutoff is decided and reserved category students from this set are admitted to a one year preparatory course conducted by IITs themselves. After passing this course, they can join the programmes without having to appear in JEE again. Even this exercise collectively yields less than 15% in IIT Delhi though the quota amounts to nearly 22.5%. Half of the reserved category students manage to clear courses comfortably while the other half struggle on the margins. What would be called a good performance (cumulative grade point average or CGPA of 8 and above) and is achieved by nearly forty percent of general category students, is rare and occurs once in many years among the reserved category students. It is not that all general category students do well. There is nearly a 5% "dropout" rate even among them which is a cause of concern but mainly attributed to the burnout due to JEE preparation phase. The "dropout" students have no effect on teaching as they neither are regular nor make their presence felt in classes. The remaining part of weak students is too small and at present hardly any instructor would pitch his / her course at that level. On the other hand, the present policy may introduce a large band of weak students which no instructor can ignore. This would definitely result in drop in the quality of education. It is the hypocrisy of the highest order that on one hand the reservation for SC/STs is considered a success and quoted for extension to OBCs, and on the other hand, no hard data on the performance of these students is available in the public domain. Some administrators I talked to consider this data as sensitive! Analysis of where the reserved category students go after graduation would be enlightening. I do not have the sensitive data but my experience shows that most of them either go to services like IAS/IES or to the public sector companies. Normally this choice of careers by IIT graduates should be a matter of satisfaction except that both these entries are again using the reservation quota. Is it empowerment or crutches for life?

In this whole episode, the most stunning news for me was when the Hon'ble minister announced increase in intake to compensate for the reservations. This would amount to nearly 56% overall increase in undergraduate intake in the IITs. This showed complete ignorance of what makes IIT undergraduate education tick. There are few Institutions in the world where undergraduate students get to interact one to one and so freely with such high-caliber faculty. Students are advised on courses in small groups, interact over hostel dinners, go on industrial trips and finally carry out a well supervised project. Every undergraduate student does an intensive "novel" project either individually or in groups of two and he/she is effectively "supervised" by a faculty member. Many of them result in publications. This system evolved when the student-faculty ratio was 6:1 and is getting strained at the seams when it has reached 12:1. In some disciplines like Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering where market competition is heavy, it has already gone to 20:1 and above. Though currently producing excellent results, it is a highly non-scalable mechanism. Intake increase on this scale, when effectively faculty strengths in key areas are decreasing could sound a death-knell to one of our few international brand names.

I have a poser for Prof. Jayati Ghosh, my well renowned colleague from JNU and a member of the knowledge commission. She has justified reservations in IITs based on the poor ranking of IITs internationally. Her argument is anyway these Institutions are not great, why they should crib about the quality of intake. She nowhere states that any of the 400+ odd Institutions worldwide which are ranked above IITs have achieved their status through reservations. In that case all Tamil Nadu Engineering Colleges with 69% reservation for decades (openly defying the Supreme Court suggested norm of 50%) now should be at the top.

Postscript: Finally, I would like to seek opinion on the composition of our next Olympics team. We have admittedly done much poorer in sports than education. Should our next Olympics team be chosen on caste basis or perhaps with adequate representation to athletes aged 40+ who are at present completely unrepresented? After all we do not have much to lose as we only win one bronze medal in alternate Olympics. I would no longer be surprised if some future Sports Minister considers caste based quotas for our national cricket team. After all that would be worth a few votes and the nation would have been well prepared by then to cheer only for its own caste brethren!

The author is a Professor of Computer Science & Engineering at IIT Delhi. He has been with IIT Delhi since 1977 except for a three year stint outside India. Currently he is on Sabbatical and working with a startup. The views represented here are completely his own.

M. Balakrishnan (mbala@cse.iitd.ac.in)