Arun Shourie's CNN-IBN interview

Arun Shourie, former Union Minister in the Vajpayee government, claims that reservations are unjustified in this interview (Part 1 & 2).

India smiles Contest

Selected entries and winners..

I heart huckabees (trailer)

An existential comedy par excellence..

AIIMS doctors

The doctors at AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) are demanding the resignation of the Union Health Minister because they don't get paid when they don't show up to work.

Chidambaram's interview on reservation

CNN-IBN's Devil's Advocate segment with P.Chidambaram, Union Finance Minister, is here in two parts (1 & 2). The highlights of the interview are:
- Karan Thapar's vindictive and aggressive interviewing style (hype-journalism). Add to this, Karan's poor knowledge of facts which he makes up by repeating irrelevant details and interrupting interviewee's answers in a pathetic effort to create a shock-effect (sensationalism-media).

Karan's feeble attempt at hijacking what Chidambaram says is evident very early in the interview. When Chidambaram says that 'reservations have worked in the southern states' ostensibly referring to the economic advances made by the four southern states, Karan misinterprets this as referring to the 'competition in educational institutions' thus:

P Chidambaram: Yes undoubtedly they have. Let me explain. Once you get a set of parents from the backward communities who are educated, the degrees the graduation the post graduation, then you find the second generation child is able to compete more effectively with children of families who have say 200 years of unbroken tradition of learning.

Karan Thapar: So you are saying that reservations in south India have improved the quality of education for everyone?

P Chidambaram: Undoubtedly.

Karan Thapar: Then let me put you the opposite of that. Because it’s widely believed that what you are saying is an illusion. All the centres of excellence which create the reputation for south India that you are referring to, I am talking about the Shankar Netralaya, the National Law College, the IIT Madras, the Indian Institute of Science Manipal there were other medical colleges, none of them have reservations for OBCs and as the sociologist Dipankar Gupta has pointed out in every single one of these the vast majority of faculty are non-OBC. They come from outside Tamil Nadu and they were not part of the Tamil Nadu education system. So clearly if they are proved its because they escaped from reservations not because of it.

Karan Thapar makes personal attacks at Chidambaram regarding his (and his son's) overseas educational choices. Embarrasingly for Karan (and his IBN team), he gets the Chidambaram's undergraduate institution wrong!

"Karan Thapar: Mr Chidambaram you are sitting in front of me advocating that reservations have improved the quality of education in Tamil Nadu. The truth is that you yourself didn’t go to an institution where there is reservation for OBCs. You went to Loyala College where there is no reservation for OBCs and then you went to Harvard. Your son went to Don Bosco School, Texas University and Cambridge University.

P Chidambaram: You got your facts wrong. I went to Presidency College, which has reservation.

Karan Thapar: For your MA at which point in time affiliation to colleges were not important.

P Chidambaram: Your facts are wrong. I went to Presidency College for my basic under graduate degree where there is reservation. I went to Law College for my law degree where there is reservation. I am not a beneficiary of reservation but I know that reservation brought in students to my class would otherwise have never got in."

- P.Chidambaram's measured responses not letting Karan Thapar's 'quibbling' get in the way of a sensible, level-headed discussion -the need of the hour- of an important topic.

National survey on Quota

AC Nielsen survey on what India thinks about implementation of reservation. Not surprisingly, a majority of the respondents to the survey agree with the overall policy of affirmative action.

Inherently biased system?

The CNN-IBN news story on the diversity profile of newsrooms around India paints an intriguing picture. The disproportionally represented profession comes as no surprise as casteism was originally founded on choice of vocation. 70% of 'key posts' in editorial/ newsroom jobs are held by Hindu upper caste men who the article says only form 8% of the total population.
In the context of the 'Reservation debate' that has assumed gigantic proportions, the objective reporting of journalists has definitely come under question. The reservation debate is implicitly 'subjective' and a neutral view point may have not been presented to us. This is evident from the lack of coverage on medical situations when doctors and medicos went on strike for more than two weeks.