The new Reservation

I am sorry I am back to blogging about this topic: RESERVATION. There are 2 reasons behind this, one, I am not able to completely sleep over the fact that this country is going to have a legislation based on caste system and two, bug of optimism in me.

I was really hoping that SC is going to come up with something to stop this reservation system but looks like madcaps (more symbolic) based out of the semi-circle building up there have again made things their way.

If you scroll down this page, you will find my pleading letter that I actually sent it to
Mr. PM with a hope!!

Let’s make a deal. Its quite simple. Anyways reservations will be a reality in no time, so lets "adjust maadi" (Bengalooru's home grown concept) with the new legislation. By this I am not favoring a win-loose situation.

Since 33% reservation will be done in phased manner, let’s have a equal representation in the government for the educated in a phased manner.

Starting this year, lets government earmark of the 543 seats in parliament 10% can be contested only by educated citizens of this country, out of this 10%, 4% should be at least PGs, 2% should be from IITs, IIMs and other top institutes like BITS etc and 2% should be at least PHDs and remaining 2% should be from professions like Medicine, Law etc.

Lets hike this percentage as we move ahead and in next 5-10 years it should be 33%. This should be applicable to state assemblies as well. I would like to name it as "Education based reservation system". The optimism bug in me is crying out loud saying 'this could happen, something better than nothing'

The argument against this is that, by allowing a caste based reservation system, meritocracy will be compromised and quality of incoming students to some of the prestigious institutions will go down and the output will be bad and this lot will make it to parliament and state assemblies under the "Education based reservation system”. Basically this ends up with GIGO.

My bug of optimism is knocking again, I strongly believe that the country's premier institutions have in them to churn any GI (Garbage In) into world class productive individuals.

Not sure if this arrangement can work in this country but if it works we have won third of the battle!

But now remains the big question: Mr. PM, Are you game for this?

VIRTUAL PERSONAL BLACK BOX

Sometime back..actually few years back and to be almost precise, beginning of this millennium I was surfing the web and read some of the trends and technologies predicted by futurists. I guess I read it on BBC website. One that caught my attention was "Personal Black Box".
I was zapped about the stuff I read. The article spoke about a gadget that would record everything you do from morning to night and consistently day after day. Article did not list out any advantages or disadvantages of this but just a prediction as to how future technologies will evolve.
I do not remember the entire article but remember the concept because it just zapped me, imagine there is a record of everything you do. I am sure this sounds crazy and one would wonder what to do with it.
Anyways, as the time passed by I had totally forgotten about it until I read a blog about Orkut. Check it out....http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/001504.html
I always thought this black box would be in the form of gizmo or a gadget but its virtual today. In the backdrop of afore mentioned blog, we are embodied with a VIRTUAL PERSONAL BLACK BOX.
Tons of personal information is shared on orkut. Birthdates, place of birth, friends, hobbies, interests, professional life, photos. You name it, people share it on Orkut.
As the blog mentions, imagine Orkut completely becomes integral part of Google, thinking about it?
Most of us infact use gmail accounts extensively and good amount of personal data is shared thru emails as well. This being the case, someone at Google "exactly" know who you are, what you do, what are the ups and downs happening in your life, how you look and what you are up to in this world.
Sounds interesting, sounds frightening?
That futurists predicted right, future is here, the only difference is it’s a virtual personal black box with unprecedented reach.
By this I am not anti-google, I do not belive that google will ever misuse this "powerful" personal information but definitely will make huge commercial gains from this information.
Personally, I love google for creating some of the best technologies in the recent past. Some of the products under google labs are amazing. Most of the google products are designed to use online, as you move along you will put more and more personal information into the google servers knowingly or unknowingly.

If you are privacy conscious, get off orkut and gmail immediately. YOU ARE BEING WATCHED!!!

Treasure Hunt....(Reservation to Money)

Wanna get rich....find the treasure at MM Hills.
It cannot get worse than this.....One page article about the late Veerappan on economist.
Surprised? I was searching some info about India on economist.com, ended up finding about Veerappan.
For those who do not know about Veerappan, check out the link :
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3329040
Veerappan.....Karnataka's most famous creation before IT!!!
My temper is rising....state paid 200 million rupees to get Rajkumar....best spend of my tax money and now god damn it...its in the plastic bags under trees in the MM hills (as per article).
I know its not a good idea but worth the try if I can get back some money out of the hidden bags.....remember its my tax money.
Well, it could be also possible that people might have already found something and pocketed it.
Anyways, any joiners for the treasure hunt?

Now or Never

Mr PM,

You are responsible for creating an important piece in Indian history after our independence. Your LIBERALISATION agenda in 1991 was a life line for then dying country. I had huge respect over the last 10 years for you. Its you who inspired me to pursue a career in economics and do something for this country. But now with this RESERVATION system I feel disgusted and have lost all the respect for you. Your fellow men in the government are pushing the country into the dark and you don't seem to give a damn about it.
Its a irony that my fellow men & woman in this country fight to belong to backward class and you as the most educated & knowledgeable PM that this country has ever is bringing a legislation to support it with open arms. Remember this will be one step towards end of India story and you will be responsible for screwing up dreams and aspirations of millions of youth in this country.
You said a important thing in your speech at India Today Conclave on Feb 25 2005, New Delhi, I will remind you "If there is an “idea of India” by which India should be defined, it is the idea of an inclusive, open, multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual society. I believe that this is the dominant trend of political evolution of all societies in the 21st century. Therefore, we have an obligation to history and mankind to show that pluralism works". By making one caste superior than other thru a legislation I am sure pluralism will just remain on paper and in your speeches.
I am sure there are more poor Hindus who cannot afford education than OBCs. Have a reservation system based on economic conditions and not
on castes. There is no dearth of money in this country when comes to a good cause, we saw that after Tsunami incident.
If there is any dearth its in EXECUTION and IMPLEMENTATION. Raise money and use it for the upliftment of the economically backward people.
At the end of the day we all know reservation will be misused by the rich and influential political friends of yours.
INDIA IS A INTELLECTUAL COUNTRY. LETS FIGHT AND COMPETE ON A INTELLECTUAL LEVEL PLAYING FIELD. DO NOT MAKE PEOPLE FIGHT TO BELONG TO BACKWARD CLASS.
Its not too late, you as the LEADER stand-up and beat the hell out of your friends in the government and do not push this country into dark.
REMEMBER YOU CREATED AN IMPORTANT PIECE OF HISTORY IN THIS COUNTRY AND FOR GOD SAKE DO NOT SCREW IT UP.

- Concerned Citizen

Do not read this if you need peace of mind..