Is SC's verdict on reservation good for our development ?

[Punnaimaran]

Thanks for getting this info, podalangai!

Well, none of those criteria, IMO, can point to "history of oppression" by some other caste group and hence needs to be "compensated".

However, I agree that all these seem to collect "groups of people" that have "below average" living standards. Considering the accuracy of such statistics in a poorly documented / accounted population like ours, the declaration of any group into this could be suspect - even if I accept that those who collect the info are honest and sincere people.

Having said that, evaluation of a student's 'correct economic status' is the best criteria for reservation, IMO.

Of all those criteria above, I liked the educational factors, and agree that reservations could be a motivation for many from such castes to complete schooling instead of dropping out.

The main purpose of the reservation is not the betterment of the economic status of those people. Instead it is aimed at their participation in the progress of our country, thereby improving the standard of living of our society as a whole.

[Billgates]

Arjun SIngh clarifies that IIMs are included .

[joe]

தமிழக மருத்துவ பட்டமேற்படிப்பு மதிப்பெண் பட்டியல்

இடப்பங்கீட்டினால் "மெரிட்" பாதிக்கப்படுவதாக புலம்பும் "அறிவுஜீவிகளிடம்" இந்த பட்டியலை ஒரு முறை காட்டலாம்.

Full Detail..
http://payanangal.blogspot.com/2008/...du-bc-mbc.html

[Billgates]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/IITs_may_relax_cutoffs_to_fill_up_quota_seats/articleshow/2949699.cms

IITs may relax cutoffs to fill up quota seats
14 Apr 2008, 0214 hrs IST,Hemali Chhapia,TNN


Entry barriers to the hallowed Indian Institutes of Technology for reserved category students will be further lowered with the pressure to increase seats, say heads at the IITs.

The three-year-long 27% OBC quota rollout which will also see an increase of 54% in seats for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes has put the IITs, which are already relaxing entry scores drastically to fill these seats, in a fix.

With seats for general category candidates remaining constant, SC and ST seats will go up by over 50% in the next three years.

The IITs which have already been lowering admission levels for SCs and STs, now feel that with seats for these categories going up, a larger population of students will have to taken in — probably at rock-bottom scores. IIT-Bombay director Ashok Misra, who had also pointed this issue out to the Veerappa Moily Oversight Committee, feels that the issue has been completely overlooked.

"To take in so many reserved category students, admission criteria will have to be relaxed," he said.

Last year, the aggregate score of the last candidate on the rank list in the general category was 206/494; the same scores for the last SC/ST candidates admitted in the IITs stood at 126.

Worse, several reserved category students who scored way below 126 were also taken in and put through a one-year preparatory course in physics, chemistry and maths. JEE chairman (Bombay zone) N Venkatramani pointed out to the gravity of the problem: "IIT-Bombay’s prep class is always full."

Besides, Misra also needs to be taken seriously keeping in view a 1993 report by ex-IIT-Madras director P V Indiresan and ex-IIT-Delhi director N C Nigam which dwelled on the impact of quotas in IITs.

"Nearly 50% of the reserved seats remain vacant as SC/ST students are unable to secure the minimum threshold marks (two-thirds of the last candidate admitted in the general category). Of those admitted, almost 25% are asked to leave due to poor performance," the report read.

A former IIT-Kharagpur director feels that the increase in SC/ST seats is likely to repeat the scenario in the 1980s when the government had forced the IITs to admit students who had scored zeros.

Besides, the Bombay zone also saw OBC registrations go up from 17% last year to 22% for JEE-2008 — 14,278 OBC students took the test this year of the total of 63,533 candidates from the Bombay zone, which also comprises Goa and parts of Gujarat, MP and Rajasthan.

Though the SC/ST issue is weighing on the minds of IIT heads, a recent analysis on income-score conducted by the IITs about the OBC candidates who got into the IITs last year reveals that the first year 9% rollout of quota may not require any relaxation in scores.

Misra said, "Our analysis, based on last year’s data, shows it may not be required to relax even a single mark for the taking in 9% OBC students in the first year. But reservation will ensure that an OBC candidate who was probably not getting the better streams, because of a lower rank, will now be able to do so."

[Roshan]

தமிழக மருத்துவ பட்டமேற்படிப்பு மதிப்பெண் பட்டியல்

இடப்பங்கீட்டினால் "மெரிட்" பாதிக்கப்படுவதாக புலம்பும் "அறிவுஜீவிகளிடம்" இந்த பட்டியலை ஒரு முறை காட்டலாம்.

Full Detail..
http://payanangal.blogspot.com/2008/...du-bc-mbc.html

Oh Great !! Quite useful indeed. Thanks

[P_R]

தமிழக மருத்துவ பட்டமேற்படிப்பு மதிப்பெண் பட்டியல்

இடப்பங்கீட்டினால் "மெரிட்" பாதிக்கப்படுவதாக புலம்பும் "அறிவுஜீவிகளிடம்" இந்த பட்டியலை ஒரு முறை காட்டலாம்.

Full Detail..
http://payanangal.blogspot.com/2008/...du-bc-mbc.html

Actually Joe this can be used for a different argument.That the "reserved" candidates are able to dominate the list will itself be taken as evidence that no reservation is required anymore

Here is what I think is happening. Most of these folks are people from economically-socially advanced classes within their reservation category. i.e. they may be from the creamy layer. Anyway these students will be getting the open competition seats.
I would say that this itself is an example of the importance of reservation. These students' parents /grandparents may have benefited from reservation and that would have provided for the necessary educational-social backing that is reflected in the exemplary performance of ther students here.

To defend the argument that even reserved category students who secure seats through these competitive exams, are meritorious we need to look at the cutoffs.

The score cutoffs for the various categories. I bet you will see that in a competitive exam like this, though the cutoffs are progressively lower than the Open-Category, they will actually be very close. So close that it will be difficult to say that the student who got in through reservation is not meritorious.

Anyone who has written even one exam in his life that a difference of a few points is a sensitive determinant of "merit". The colleges use cutoffs because supply < demand. Period.

So the claims that "reservation" students make risky doctors become engineers who build shaky bridges, is IMO largely prejudice.

[equanimus]

Prabhu Ram,
Supply > demand, you mean. Absolutely, and the key to "access" (read understand) reservation systems is to first come out of the notion that the quality of daily jobs work purely based on merit, while it's mostly the contrary. A "job," by design, involves skill acquired by repetition (no, this isn't a grudging reference to the daily drudgery that my own job is), evolves by practice, by using tried and tested formulae, by experience. That's what engineers are made of. I'm not being dismissive of skill at all, but it can clearly be honed. Genius, more often than not, is a pleasurable thing only in its own universe.

Arbitrary theory off the top of my head (with bizarre extrapolations et al., where's the fun otherwise!): God works this way. What is utterly necessary to the world -- building bridges, writing software that people want to use, anyone can do such stuff with enough prodding (education system). What's (to the larger world) completely redundant (number theory, writing, filmmaking etc.), worthless, useless or ridiculous (completing minesweeper intermediate in 30 seconds?), only few can manage. But, most of the rest of the world isn't too keen about their brothers' advances. As Maurice the wrestler noted once: "The perfect mediocrity; no better, no worse."
And, the actual supply is often very less (even if there are far too many "aspirants" who don't quite belong to the "supply" category) in those cases. Not that there's a great demand. Which is why a Math Olympiad exam is often without any time limits, while a CAT exam is all about time.

[P_R]

Supply < Demand. As in Supply of seats < demand for them.
So you have to have a cutoff. As I read in Brilliant Tutorial spooky as describing the JEE as "not a selection procedure, but a rejection procedure". In such an environment I felt the argument that a few points eitherway cannot be thought of as a determinant of "merit".

Agree largely with the points mentioned about "merit" being less relevant than people make it out to be. There are many more arguments "against" meritocracy. Some will sound quite anarchic and can be counterproductive here :P

[P_R]

>digr.>
Liked your "useless things" categorization.

I once had a prof. who was teaching a rather abstract concept which exactly three of us in class - including him - were interested in. It was patently impractical and the earnest man was trying to cook up the most tenuous examples trying to prove its "applicability". I disagreed with the approach as I thought the concept was interesting and that was it.

Last month , from absolutely nowhere, I found myself thinking about the same concept for a particualr problem at work. Some searching, scratching and discussion led to implementing - with some tweaks- the very same thing I had learnt years back. I had half a mind to email that prof to tell him that it was "indeed" applicable. It may have made him happy. But then it would have sounded as if I was also patiently waiting for this "proof of applicability" as a defence for the existence of the theory itself.

As the Irish seer said: "All art is quite useless"

<end digr.<

[equanimus]

Supply < Demand. As in Supply of seats < demand for them.
So you have to have a cutoff.

Oh. My representation obviously was by considering the candidates as "commodities." The supply of potential doctors is more than the demand for doctors in the market. Like the IT industry of India has sufficiently proved to the merit-obsessed great Indian middle-class, if the demand is more, the criteria of merit automatically comes down. As a kid (uh, a twelfth standard kid, that is), I used to worry no end that TN professional entrance exams were being made so easy that "true merit" became indeterminable for all practical purposes. But, then, I realised that was the idea.

Agree largely with the points mentioned about "merit" being less relevant than people make it out to be. There are many more arguments "against" meritocracy. Some will sound quite anarchic and can be counterproductive here :P

I myself can agree only so much with my thoughts. So, "largely" is fine. The idea was to problematise certain notions, not to offer solutions, which, as it must be clear to everyone by now, I'm entirely incapable of.