E-Paper
IIT-K students protest OBC quota issue
STUDENTS OF the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-K) are on the warpath over the OBC reservation issue. Despite the fact that the final examinations are to start from April 22, students have decided to register a strong protest against the government proposal of creating OBC quota in higher technical and professional institutions.
STUDENTS OF the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-K) are on the warpath over the OBC reservation issue. Despite the fact that the final examinations are to start from April 22, students have decided to register a strong protest against the government proposal of creating OBC quota in higher technical and professional institutions.
The decision to this effect was taken at an emergency meeting of the student senate here late Tuesday evening. Student members of the senate decided to join a one-day classroom boycott on April 17, following the call given by the students of various technical and management institutes all over the country through SMS and e-mails.
They also decided to take out a silent procession against the government proposal at 5 pm on Wednesday. Students will collect at the students activity centre (SAC) and from there they will march up to the office of the director of the institute to hand over a memorandum.
Finally, they will send memorandums to the prime minister and the President of India. The students present at the senate meeting were Chandra Mohan Thakur, Vaibhav Tripathi, Vivek Arora, Ajit, Gaurav Pathak and Sandeep Singh Chaddha.
Students said the faculty members were also supporting their stand and were against quota in these institutions. The faculty members present at the meeting included Dr A K Sharma (Humanities Department), Dr MK Verma (Physics) and Dr HC Verma (Physics).
At the senate meeting the students discussed the seven-point agenda and prepared a memorandum to be submitted to the president and the prime minister.
In the memorandum they said that politicisation of higher educational institutes to strengthen vote banks was a dangerous step which would adversely affect the credibility of the institutes all over the world. They said the existing reservation policy had badly hit the general candidates and any more reservation would further demoralise them.
They further said that merit should be treated as the base for entrance in the prestigious institutes. They said before thinking of creating another quota, the government should review the condition of the beneficiaries. In fact, except the children of well-off SC and ST officials or businessmen, no candidate from the quota belonging to middle or low middle class could get any benefit of the reservation.
They suggested to the government that instead of fixing quota for OBCs, it should focus on imparting best education to the OBC candidate so that they could be selected for their merit at prestigious institutes.
