Aristo, While you acknowledge the gross problems with the reservations system, I do not believe your proposals address the fundamental flaws of the reservations system in the first place. I cannot accept the propagation if new injustices to make up for injustices that occured hundreds of years ago.
As you mentioned, India has had its reservations policy for 5 decades and has not had much to show for it. The state of Bihar which has "benefitted" the most from this misguided reservations policy is not something I would look forward to for the rest of the nation. Likewise, India has theoretically had free primary education for many decades, but its literacy rate is still in the trash pile. I dont see how extending this policy for another 20 years will change things. Providing crappy basic educational resources for the disadvantaged and then, later in their lives, lavishing them with high end educational resouces and jobs that they cannot handle later makes absolutely no sense to me. Rather than excluding (via reservations) India's best and brightest from the top education they deserve, the goal should continue to be to expand the quality and availability of primary and secondary education to the economically deprived classes. India has lagged far behind most of its asian competitors in making quality primary and secondary education and the necessary economic support accessible to its deprived youth. The criterion for economic support should be a clearly definable economic status, not some fuzzy factor like cast or freedom fighter status as is the case for some of our Goan heros. I understand that after years of neglect, there was a significant increase in spending for basic education in this year's budget. We need to think win-win for the qualfied and for the deprived. The resevations policy is a dubious win for the deprived and a definate loss for the qualified. Marlon --- Aristo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello Elizabeth, George and Jason, > > It is such a pleasant change to see an interesting > and civilised debate such > as this, that I am compelled to finally make my > debut on Goanet, after a > significant stint of being a silent observer, put > off by all the juvenility. > > I see that both sides of the camp have some valid > points that have left me > more confused than a little time ago, when I was > staunchly against > reservation. But after a few google searches of > statistics, some personal > contemplation of my personal experiences, and a > re-read of chapter 4 of Shashi > Tharoors INDIA: From Midnight to the Millennium, > here are my thoughts: _____________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. Goanet mailing list (Goanet@goanet.org)