Exciting development

Your cover story ‘The world’s most ambitious education portal’ (EW May) made great reading. The launch of GlobalScholar.com is indeed an exciting develop-ment for Indian teachers and students. India is home to a huge and talented community of teachers. Now they can put their skills to excellent use by offering online tuition to students around the world. Higher secondary school students who currently rely on fly-by-night coaching institutes can use GlobalScholar.com to access quality tuition. However sadly I think its benefits will be restricted to urban India as most villages don’t have electricity supply for most part of the day and/or access to broadband connectivity.

The founder CEO Kal Raman must be given full credit for launching this truly unique education portal. His journey from a small village in Tamil Nadu to fame and money in America is truly inspirational. He rightly ascribes his success to education. Undoubtedly for millions of poor children in India education is the only way out of the cycle of poverty.

Serena Samuel
Bangalore

Judicial disservice

I read the special report ‘OBC Reservations: Arjun Singh’s failed last hurrah’ (EW May) with consuming interest. I have been religiously following the OBC reservations case in the media and law reports, and must compliment you for the insightful analysis of the issues involved.

Quite clearly Union HRD minister Arjun Singh learned his political lessons from former prime minister V.P. Singh, who after reserving 27 percent of Central government jobs for OBCs, became the prime minister of India. He seems to believe that by reserving a similar quota for OBCs in Central government colleges and universities, he will be able to do likewise. But he is going to learn the hard way — as V.P. Singh did — that the electoral dividend of creating caste consciousness within the OBC communities will flow to OBC political outfits such as the Bahujan Samaj and Samajwadi parties.

You have rightly pointed out that letting loose the “incubus of casteism” on the country’s campuses will spoil the atmosphere of India’s struggling colleges and univer-sities. Soon caste riots and agitations will break out on peaceful college campuses and they will need to be closed down for prolonged periods as is already happening in Uttar Pradesh.

In okaying further caste-based reservations in institutions of learning, the Supreme Court has done Indian education a disservice, although the judges have made efforts to minimise the impact of their verdict by excluding creamy layer OBCs and disallowing very low cut-offs for quota students. But with a large number of under-prepared OBC, SC and ST students entering India’s top institutes, which are already less than world class, academic standards are bound to suffer.

Snehal Mehta
Mumbai

Backfired machinations

Thanks for your brilliant special report ‘OBC Reservations: Arjun Singh’s failed last hurrah’ (EW May). In particular the box item ‘Summary of Chief Justice Balakrishnan’s judgement’ clears the air about important legal and constitutional issues. Though the five-bench Supreme Court order has sanctioned 27 percent reservation for OBC students in Central government institutions of higher education, it has excluded the ‘creamy layer’ from accessing the reserved quota. This is very significant as the children of the creamy layer receive sufficiently good quality primary and secondary education and consequently are in a good position to access top-rung higher education institutions on merit. By excluding the creamy layer, the Supreme Court has ensured that the benefits of additional reservation reach the truly deserving among OBCs.

As you rightly say, the exclusion of the creamy layer is not likely to go down well with Arjun Singh, whose strategy was to push the children of top OBC politicians and bureaucrats into elite institutions such as the IIMs and IITs through reservation. But thanks to the Supreme Court, his machinations have backfired.

Surendranath Roy
Delhi

Spoilt brats of Indian industry

I was very pleased to read your exposé of IT tycoon and professed champion of primary education, Azim Premji (EW May). As you have correctly stated, the IT industry is the spoilt brat of India. IT companies don’t pay any income tax, drive up property prices and make constant demands on state govern-ments for roads, water and electricity supplies while paying lip service to corporate social responsibility. More-over these narrow-minded technicians, who have minimal awareness of economics, sociology and human rights issues, are celebrated as the new intellectuals of 21st century India.

One indeed needs “a very powerful magnifying glass” to detect the public projects funded by tax-dodging IT companies. In Bangalore — a once gracious city destroyed by IT nerds — it’s impossible to find any libraries, municipal school labs or lavatories etc funded by IT millionaires who are given acres of media coverage. An initiative to build public lavatories by Sudha Murthy of the Infosys Foundation is in a shambles because they are very poorly maintained.

In the very same issue of EducationWorld, I read about the efforts of a small scale businessman Adittya Mody who has built several schools in the backward districts of Rajasthan and of the Williamson Magor Trust which has promoted the world- class Assam Valley School. Premji and the over-hyped tycoons of the IT industry could learn from their example.

Nirupama Subramaniam
Bangalore