Quota hits knowledge panel | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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Quota hits knowledge panel

None | ByHT Political Bureau, New Delhi
May 23, 2006 12:58 AM IST

CALL IT the quota impact. Two members of the National Knowledge Commission -- Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Andre Beteille -- resigned from the panel on Monday in opposition to the government's stand on reservation. They were among the six panellists who had opposed the proposal to reserve 27 per cent seats for OBCs.

2 members quit; PM renews appeal

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CALL IT the quota impact. Two members of the National Knowledge Commission -- Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Andre Beteille -- resigned from the panel on Monday in opposition to the government's stand on reservation. They were among the six panellists who had opposed the proposal to reserve 27 per cent seats for OBCs.

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The reservation wrangle continued behind the doors and in the streets. The six-hour-long meeting between Union home secretary P.C. Hota and the striking medicos failed to make a breakthrough as the government refused to accept the students' demand to constitute an expert panel to look into the issue. The medicos said the agitation would go on.

Later in the day, a conciliatory note was present in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's address at a function to mark the UPA's second year in office. Asking students to call off the agitation and to have faith in the government, he said, "We will provide education opportunities to all our children."

Conciliation was, however, the last thing that figured on the resignation letter that Mehta, convener of the Knowledge Commission, sent to the PM. "Many of the recent announcements made by your government with respect to higher education leads me to the conclusion that my continuation on the commission will serve no useful purpose," it read.

Beteille, a sociologist, said in his resignation letter: "I hoped that I could contribute something to the design of new centres of science and scholarship… but the government's decision to proceed with the expansion of caste quotas makes the objective appear unrealistic".

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