CNN IBN interviewed Arjun Singh in Devil's Advocate. The text of the interview is available here.

"Karan Thapar: It says, that looking at the Delhi University, between 1995 and 2000, just half the seats for under-graduates at the Scheduled Castes level and just one-third of the seats for under-graduates at the Scheduled Tribes level were filled. All the others went empty, unfilled. So, again, even in Delhi University, reservations are not working.

Arjun Singh: If they are not working, it does not mean that for that reason we don't need them. There must be some other reason why they are not working and that can be certainly probed and examined. But to say that for this reason, 'no reservations need to be done' is not correct."

This clearly shows the homework our honourable minister did before making a law. In the entire interview he has not been able to justify the case for reservation and asserts that it is a decision taken by parliament. So he is not even ready to take any responsibilty for this. He is not at all concerned with the solution working or even figuring out if this is a solution after all.

Two members of the National Knowledge Commission (set up by the Prime Minister to promote excellence in education and knowledge creation), have quit due to the governments persistence over implementing quotas.

Political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta and sociologist Andre Beteille said they were disillusioned with the government’s policies, which they saw as a betrayal of the principles on which the commission was founded.

In his quit letter, Beteille wrote to Manmohan, who had handpicked the commission’s eight members: “I have always made a distinction between numerical quota and affirmative action. What is happening now is dangerous.”

Mehta’s letter said, “The government has revealed that it cares about tokenism more than social justice. We are not doing enough to genuinely empower marginalised groups but are offering condescending palliatives like quotas as substitute.”

The Telegraph has more.

Copied below are the views of Prof. M Balakrishnan, a computer science professor at IIT Delhi as expressed at the iit4equality yahoo group.

Nearly six decades after independence, this country is planning to announce that majority of its population is backward and does not have equal opportunity to pursue education and employment. Along with this, it is going to open up a Pandora's Box by various caste groups to be classified as "backward". What an interesting way to begin the 21st century when finally India was beginning to emerge as a serious player in the new knowledge economy! The major carrot that is being doled out is the seats in the elite medical, engineering and management Institutes. What bothers me is no one is interested in even consulting the people who have built these institutions and brought them to this stature. I have strong views on efficacy of reservations in general but here I would confine myself to the issues concerning IITs. At least here with my three decade long association, I can claim to know something. Many of these arguments may be applicable to the other elite Institutions in medical and management disciplines as well.

The anti-quota rally, organised by medical students in Delhi, saw a massive turnout where thousands of people from all sections of the society turned up to lend support.

The gathering congregated near Jantar Mantar at about 10 A.M. in the morning and was largely peaceful. Medical students from all over the country joined the rally as also hundreds of Engineers, some from major software firms.

The atmosphere reverberated with chants ranging from 'Arjun Singh Hai Hai' to a more RDB'esque 'Inquilab Zindabad'. Motivational speaker Shiv Khera and cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Sidhu also turned up to deliver fiery speeches which was received by the gathering with much applause.

Read more here and here.

The protests against reservations initiated by medical students in Delhi is now spreading throughout the country.

A group of 200 medical students was lathicharged in Mumbai on Saturday when they blocked a road to the Raj Bhavan to protest against the government’s reservation proposal.

Services at three government medical colleges in Cuttack, Burla and Berhampur cities of Orissa were affected when about 1,200 house surgeons and junior doctors in government medical colleges went on strike...

Reports are coming in on how young medicos in hundreds have taken seige of the Connnaught Place area in New Delhi and have stopped movement of all traffic.

Demanding a reply from the government on the reservation issue, they are holding hands and standing ground against water cannons being used by the police to disperse them.

Let us not delude ourselves. IIT is a very efficient and consistent breeding ground for productive mediocrity.

It is very fashionable for the young upper middle class `global' Indian citizen to inveigh against the `sectarian', `populist' and `parochial' policies of the government. The article `Reservation saga' (Open Page, April 23) denouncing 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in the IITs and IIMs falls under this category. It seeks to question the validity of the anti-reservation lobby. As a specific case, we will examine their claims with regard to IIT.

The most feasible approach towards analysing the argument against reservation in IIT is to view the underlying axioms that its proponents cheerfully assume to be unquestionably true.

I am an MBBS student at AIIMS (All india Institute of Medical Sciences). I was one of the protestors at the New Delhi incident on 26th. Believe me, the feeling of hatred, bitterness and the sense of abandonment that comes over you when you see your friends and classmates struck by water cannon and having tear gas shells thrown at their faces can never be explained in words.

I felt like my nation has betrayed me, and the criminals in the government are not listening.However even as I write this, our organisation YOUTH FOR EQUALITY (comprised of students of all five delhi medical colleges) is trying to shore up suport for our cause from all sources....

Young India is finally beginning to believe. On Wednesday, April 26 medical students in Delhi took the reservation debate right back to Arjun Singh's home.

The anger and frustration brewing among students over the proposed government move to reserve seats for other backward classes in Central educational institutions degenerated into a mass protest on Wednesday when hundreds of medical students staged a strong protest right in front of the residence of Union HRD Minister Arjun Singh.

Police fired water canons and tear gas in an effort to prevent the students from staging the protest.

"We were protesting peacefully, they started treating us like animals. We work so hard and the to the top medical colleges and suddenly this reservation comes up," one of the protesting students said.

Read more on IBN Live, DNA India and Telegraph India.

The Congress is hell bent upon furthering its agenda of populist, divisive and pseudo-developmental initiatives. The latest salvo is the growing voices in the party for legislation to enforce reservation in private sectors.

Corporate India has still not taken a stand against it, although Azim Premji recently put forth his scorn for reservation.

One wonders what happened to the reformer called Manmohan Singh, and why the hell is he letting all this crap fly.