May 28, 2010 |
The country is in a vortex of challenges, counter challenges and suspicious suggestions on the desirability or otherwise of including caste in the 2011 census. A calmer discussion may clear a number of cobwebs. It is common knowledge that the caste system has existed in our country for centuries. It is unnecessary to dilate upon the origin of caste; whether it was the freezing of a guild system, helped and encouraged, no doubt, by Brahamanical scriptural history, and the lack of an industrial...
June 5, 2007 |
NEW DELHI: Among other things, India is also unique for being a country where downward mobility is desirable, even fought for. "It is to be noted that nowhere else in the world do castes, classes or communities queue up for the sake of gaining backward status," a two-judge bench of the Supreme Court had said earlier this year while staying 27% OBC reservations in central education institutions. The court was referring to the necessity of the creamy layer principle in...
April 29, 2006 |
The whole idea of reservation is based on the premise that the Hindu society is still caste-based and that some of the castes are socially backward. Today, nobody can strictly be called a brahmin or kshatriya or vaisya or sudra. The caste system is an anachronism today and an evil. The only way to abolish this is not to recognise castes. Reservation in the name of castes will only perpetuate this evil. M Venkataraman By e-mail, April 28
April 5, 2012 |
NEW DELHI: Voicing concern over prevalance of the caste system, Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar today said the barriers imposed by it will have to go if democracy has to maintain its robustness. The real concern is that despite development, the mindset to come out of the shackles of age-old caste system has not been completely broken, she said presiding over the Fifth Babu Jagjivan Ram Memorial Lecture here. There is an inherent conflict between...
August 24, 2013 |
NEW DELHI: Government is in talks with the private sector on the issue of providing reservation in jobs, but wants to do it in an "amicable way", Social Justice Minister Kumari Selja said today. "We are in talks with the private sector on the issue and don't want to take any stringent step. We want to do this in an amicable way," she said in the Lok Sabha. Selja was winding up a discussion on a bill seeking to modify the existing...