OBC quota dividing youth on caste lines

In China the slogan is unity is strength. But in India the motto of a few is ‘division is strength’, said Prof S S Murthy of IIT, Delhi.

He was speaking on "Higher education and affirmative action" organised by the Institution of Engineers, Mangalore local centre, and Mangalore Productivity Council at SDM Law College.

He said the 27 per cent OBC reservation policy in tune with divisive politics was dividing Indian youth into confronting groups on the basis of caste. "Students are being polarised on caste lines and this will boomerang on India’s efforts to lure NRIs," he warned.

Recollecting VP Singh’s assurance on non-implementation of reservation in science and technical institutes, he said even Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were against caste-based reservation.

On rejecting IITs as being elitist and anti-poor he said professors like him were from rural areas. Students from middle class families and rural background are also studying in IITs, he added. The reservation policy, which needs a re-look, will only benefit the affluent and less merited members of OBC, Murthy said.

He said a ray of hope had emerged with some political entities now fuelling a debate on economic criteria. He said IIT alumni had proposed to set up a corpus fund to identify bright among deprived from all schools at matriculation level and train them to pursue courses they desire if the government does not weaken IITs.

Mangalore Management Association president K Devaraj, Mangalore Productivity Council M Shekar Pujari, Institution of Engineers, Mangalore local centre president T R Bhat, MMA secretary T G Shenoy were present.

Department of Science and Technology has appointed Prof S S Murthy as Indian area co-ordinator in the field of energy and environment in compliance of Indo-Canada inter-governmental science and technology agreement signed recently.

The area co-ordinator from Canadian side is yet to be made public. Prof Murthy told this newspaper that under the Indo-Canada programme, with the co-operation of scientific community and industry from India and Canada, will develop “energy technics” based on wind and bio-fuels.