Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

May 5, 2006

Face of Delhi MBBS Students Protest

Filed under: My Thoughts,News/Articles — Suramya @ 11:20 AM

Recently the MBBS Students in Delhi mounted a protest at India Gate against the Indian govt’s intention of increasing the reservations in the premier government educational institutions like the Indian Institute of Technologies (IITs) and Indian Institute of Managements and other institutions of higher learning to 49.5%.

These students were tear-gassed and sprayed with water cannons when they blocked traffic on Janpath, near Hotel Le Meridian crossing. Mild lathicharge was also resorted to in order to break the ‘rasta roko’, which lasted for more than one-and-a-half hours. Below is an awesome pic that someone took that can be termed as ‘Face of the Protest’. Whoever took the photo should be given an award.

MBBS Student Protest

More pics and writeup’s are available at Face of Delhi MBBS Students Protest

Increasing the quota is a sucidal move, do you really want to have a person who barely managed to pass his highschool exams to become a doctor because he is from a ‘backward’ class and operate on you. I certainly don’t, It would suck to find out half way into the operation that the ‘doctor’ had no clue what to do. Same thing for an engineer, do you want someone with no clue about structural integrity designing and building skyscapers? You do??? Then you must have a death wish, I certainly don’t.

If the gov’t wants to improve the lot of the backward classes it should make primary, secondary and highschool education free. Open more schools, give deserving students more scholarships. Teach the students to learn, make them work for it. Dont let them coast through school and then become a doctor without doing the hardwork during which they actually learn stuff.

So I think that this is not really a smart idea and it would be better to give financial aid to deserving students. Also instead of complaining about it I think we should do something about it. I take inspiration from people like Tarini (who sent me this) who also actually do stuff about the social situation instead of just complaining about it. So while I have been donating to charity organizations (Aryasamaj, Basera) that helps educate kids with potential, I haven’t been able to give time to actual volunteer work. However that is something which is going to change soon, (prob next year) as I will actually start volunteering in various organizations (not just national but international). Lets see how that works out.

What are your thoughts on reservation? Do you think its a good idea, or a really bad one that will come back and bite us in the backside in a couple of years? Let me know.

Thanks,
Suramya

6 Comments »

  1. amazing pic.

    Volunteering is good. remove this picture thing from your comments– its irritating

    Comment by subhi — May 10, 2006 @ 12:32 PM

  2. hi suramya
    i totally agree to your point that the economic aid should be provided in the form of free education up till high school. there should be no reservation on the basis of caste else we are not secular. and about ur views on the pic, i dont know whether it was a deliberate attempt or a coincidence, but the photograph has been used by the newspapers only to increase their circulation and not to report the issue. All the leading dailies carried this pic on the frontpage but the news about the issue was not very well covered. i have keyed down my views regrding the way the pic has been used. you can read it on http://www.merinews.com

    Comment by nikunj — May 15, 2006 @ 3:46 AM

  3. Hi Nikunj,
    I don’t agree with your views on the use of the photograph, you say that the newspapers only used it to increase their circulation and didn’t really cover it well. They did cover the issue but didn’t give it a lot of attention because of the other stuff happening at the same time… namely Pramode Mahajan getting shot by his brother and his barely staying alive for three days. That was major news and even though this issue(Protest by the students) was important, that news had a higher priority and pre-empted this news.

    Also the photo is not just about a drenched girl, there’s a drenched guy in the back ground too and the expression on both their faces is pure defiance, “do what you want but we will make sure our protests are heard”.

    – Suramya

    PS: http://www.merinews.com doesn’t load at all in Firefox.

    Comment by Suramya — May 15, 2006 @ 4:30 PM

  4. hi surmaya
    i agree that there were other issues but i was pointing at way this issue was covered. the dailies leveraged on the pic. u can pick up the issue and see the size of the pic and size of the text alloted to the story. any how the more important thing is the issue… and i m with you that the protests will never go waste.

    nikunj

    Comment by nikunj — May 16, 2006 @ 3:05 AM

  5. hey
    sorry for missplelling ur name in my previous comment

    nikunj
    http://www.merinews.com
    http://alwayskeepwalking.blogspot.com

    Comment by nikunj — May 19, 2006 @ 11:44 PM

  6. Nice comments !

    It seems there are so many thing happening around. Life is taking nice turns for those young. Unfortunately, I have a feel I have slipped around life without enjoying it. I was working while others lived it.

    Slowan

    slowcharm2007@yahoo.co.in

    Comment by Slowan — December 11, 2009 @ 2:06 AM

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