The doubtful future! Updated

I talked about the quota issue in one of my recent posts (Quota, please provide it to common people) and the gravity of the effects this will have on the quality of engineers in India. And just a few days after that comes a shocking news from IIT's.

Let me give a brief introduction before I start with the recent announcement by IIT's.

It was decided that 27% of the seats in IIT's would be reserved for the backward classes, which would be increased to a, hold your jaws, 50% gradually, by around 2010. During this process new seats would be created in IIT's of which nearly none would be available to the general caste, those new seats will be given to backward classes. It angered students to the bones, who were already facing such stiff competition for the very few seats in IIT's, more than 3 lack students compete for 5,000 seats already (new IIT's have opened after this post taking the number to around 7000, but the number of students giving the exam will also go up), as for the reserved seats, it is said that 50% never fill up due to lack of talented students and out of the selected many are shown the door out due to extremely poor performance. Students from backward classes are not even able to meet the criterion, two third marks of what the last student in general pool to be admitted secured, which creates doubts as to what kind of students are getting into IIT's.

Now, I come to the announcement, IIT's have decided to lower the cut-off for the reserved category further, students in the reserved category were being admitted at a score of about 125 out of 489 and this is set to go further down which is the most shameful thing for what are known as the top technical institutes of India. Students with nearly no capability, scoring under 25% in Physics, Chemistry and Maths will be admitted to India's premier institutes and students who deserve being in IIT and score much higher than these backward class fellows will be denied education in IIT, and what is most surprising is that in this teeth-to-teeth competition there will be empty seats, the ones those were not filled due to lack of candidates with a good score in the backward pool.

This is the absolutely wrong way of trying to get the backward class into the mainstream, you can't kill genuine talent for that. What is the need of the situation is a system of identifying the talented lot among the young minds, through tests, olympiads, and then training them in good schools though quota and letting them compete on their own with the main stream in exams like IIT-JEE. And this has to be done from the lower level, this process should be complete by 10th grade and after that talent should be left to compete not caste.

One thing that is killing India is bad politics, not politics itself but bad politics, nobody realy cares for others, everyone is concerned about himself. And same is in education sector, the ministers don't even care what the result will be, don't realize what they are doing, they don't give the fact a thought that they are playing with the future of a nation, all they want is votes. We need change!

Quota, please provide it to common people

© Amul

Out of the two topics I really wanted to write on, I chose the one which is more relevant to the stage of life I am in, The reservation issue in India.

India has been witnessing the worse form of politics lately, education and training of talented youths no longer seems to be the primary motive of the government, rather vote gaining tactics are suppressing genuine talent. Reservation policy is nothing but a dirty way to ensure votes in the party's favor, an open exploitation of the fact that a considerable population of India is classified as SC's, ST's and OBC's. I don't advocate keeping these classes as such and not helping them gain quality education so that eventually they may enter the main stream, actually I feel that reservation till secondary level is a fantastic idea, let me say that again with impact, TILL SECONDARY LEVEL. Why I say that? The logic behind this is that the current system gives the under-reservation classes absolutely no reason to work hard, it gives them no incentive at all. They know that even if they fail in metric, they have assured job under the reservation policy. The result, a poorly qualified workforce. The same is the case in higher education scene, people who are not really worth getting into such institutions are getting admission and the already lacking number of seats in IIT's and IIM's go further down for the bright students who are unlucky to not to be born in a SC family. I call this killing talent just because we did not do something which should have been done earlier, reservation would have been more explainable if it would have been just after independence, because people had the will but not the opportunity, but now this is nothing but giving opportunity to such people who have no will, are poorly qualified and will have no significant effect on the ailing skilled workforce scene in India. Rather than giving these people everything on a silver platter, the concentration should be on the young population of India, on providing them good education, reserving seats for them at primary level, so that they can compete with everyone for entrance in higher education institutes on the basis of their competence and  and not on the basis of the family they are born in. If this happens my friend would not have to say "India main kuch nahi rakha hai, yahan sab reserved hai, IIT ke sapne sapne hi reh jayenge."(There is nothing left in India, everything is being reserved, dream of getting in IIT would remain a dream.)

About me and my life, everything else can wait a bit

I wanted to write on a lot of topics, but the thing is that you would be better able to understand the thesis if you know about me and my life, you would be able to imagine the situation from my perspective. So I start with a small introduction.

I am Utkarsh, just graduated to +1, just like any teenager, excited to explore ,and extend my knowledge and to spread what I know and think.

I am known as Tech-Expert at school, but there is more to me than even they know, or anybody knows for that matter and I would tell you those reasons too, but later. My art teacher hates me, because I can't (read don't) draw trees and mountains, and what I draw, modern art and cars, is of no interest to her. I discovered I could sing well, actually my music teacher discovered that first, a few years ago, but the training schedule proved to be too hectic for a lazy fellow like me, so I stuck to my dear computer, though I have to say, things like presentations have started to feel like mundane, but I am far from ditching computer as my favorite pastime.

My father is on a transferable job, we keep shifting in about a year or two, so I have a long list of friends, but they complain I don't meet them often, you would better understand the reason if you study in India, you hardly have any time.

I love traveling, in summer holidays the whole family packs up for an adventure, the last year it was South India and an year before that was Singapore and the next one is on the drawing board and is expected soon. I love cycling around, even if its near my home, I just should ride cycle once a day, Its a rule and I will be getting a new one soon.

So that's a lot of new things this year, I am expecting a bad stomach in case I am not able to digest it all.