Questions I want to ask Dr. Manmohan Singh on this Children’s day - 14th Nov., 2009

“First of all I congratulate you for your second term at the office after winning the recent loksabha elections. Not many prime ministers in the past have had such success and you have just added in the list of those people.

I have two questions for you. I would like to elaborate on each question as I put forward these two questions. Firstly why are quotas for economically backward class still into existence? Let’s consider this situation. We call them economically backward because they are economically not capable as compared to other people in the society.Economy-> (implies) Money i.e. they don’t have enough funds for educating their children. Here we must remember they are economically backward and not intellectually backward. So having known this why are students which are less deserving in this category given opportunities than those who are much more deserving. Is this contributing to the development of India? Do pampering students of this category and giving them admissions in reputed institutions which most of them eventually end up being not so successful as others, contributing to the progress of India , in fact we are hindering the progress by not giving opportunities to the deserving students who might turn it into something one might not even think of. Lets consider a solution to this, lets remove all the Quotas and have an open category for all students irrespective of their background and offer a 100% tuition waiver to those students who belong to economically backward class(all of them SC,OBC etc.).Now here we have another question where will the government bring this much funds who is already in fiscal deficit. What if each student pay 10-15% more on their fees which will eventually contribute to the fees of these economically backward students. I am sure that any middle class family will be ready to spend a little more if their son is getting something deserving and grand which will create an excellent carrier for him in 3-4 years. Don’t you think that with right people getting the right opportunities, India will progress more rapidly than what it is doing today. After all any definition of democracy includes, equality and freedom and each child deserve equal opportunities.

The second question I want to ask you today is why more and more students resorting to studying abroad? Even this question is somehow related to the previous issue; in fact it is the repercussion of the above discussed issue. When a student plans for his graduation or post graduation he thinks about opportunities, with India having quota system he is further discouraged and starts thinking about abroad studies where their talents are cherished in true sense. No parent in India like sending their child abroad with a burdon of huge loan and with a worry that the child might get racially assaulted. Today we are celebrating children’s day, children’s, that we say are the future of our country, But are they the future of our country in true sense if more and more students go abroad and become NRI’s? Do teachers spend so much of time and energy just to see that their students become big tomorrow and contribute to the development of other countries and not India? To say this in other words, we are teaching students today so that they take US, UK further ahead of India. Doesn’t that sound absurd?

Mr. Prime Minister, you have been there for last five years and even though you have faced the criticism initially, you have proved time to time how strong you are especially after the nuke deal. I think with you as a Prime Minister we can feel confident, a little more optimistic. Today on the eve of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s birth anniversary, I appeal to you to have a vision, a vision to have equal opportunities for all, a vision to increase the educational standard and develop more and more quality institutions to cater to the needs of increasing students, a vision something similar to what Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru had when he started IIT’s because of which India has some stand in the field of technology and eventually a vision to reduce the number of NRI’s. This change won’t happen in one day or one month or one year, it will happen gradually over a period of 20-30 years, but will happen as long as we believe in this vision. I always remember you and most of the people in India do for what you did in 1991, let’s have this change today so that our children will remember you for 2009-10 as well.

Thank you.”