Saturday, June 17, 2006

Veerappa Moily, the management guru


Though you maintain that the task ahead is possible, you concede that it is onerous. What are the greatest hurdles?

Mindset. We refuse to think out of the box. Revolutionary thinking will have to be introduced. Nothing is impossible in these days of technology. Once the mindset is liberated, we will be on our way.

Six management cliches in just a few lines; it just can't get better than this! Do read this interview of M. Veerappa Moily, Chairman of the Oversight Committee for implementation of 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in central educational institutions.

He mouthed "knowledge society" eight times in that interview; the politician in him made his presence felt through the use of the word "inclusive" -- twice.

4 Comments:

  1. Anonymous said...

    I do not think that there is an overdose on 'merit'. Perhaps many of the others have better knowledge of the issues involved.I find that I am beginning to learn some about the issue and the way various words are used. It is easy to form an opinion and find supporting statements but it takes some time and discussion to come to grips with an issue and form an informed albeit tentative opinions.I am glad that Abi and others persisted with the discussion.

  2. Anonymous said...

    Abi: Its good that there has been a lot of discussion on social justice. But this entire discusion has been focussed only on one under-represented group: by caste. I think this entire reservations/social justice discussion would be strengthened by focussing on ALL underrepresented groups in higher education and in leadership positions: women, religious minorities etc.

    For example, take women as an underrpresented minority. Why are there such few women in the engineering schools and IITs? Why do women on an average seem to do better than men at the Class 12 exams but not as well on the standardized tests to engineering schools? (i think Dilip raised this issue before). What can we do to ensure proportional representation of ALL under-represented groups, not just by caste?

    Thanks

    Neela

  3. Anonymous said...

    Why are there more women in Medical COlleges (In Tamil Nadu)

    In the past 6 years, women comprise two-thirds in many medical colleges in Tamil Nadu
    Even in 1996, our class had 33 boys out of 100 students !!!!

    The situation seems to be the same even today (or "improving" on the ladies side)

    I found in a PG Entrace Coaching Programme that 70% of those enrolled are ladies !!!!

    I do not know about IIT or Engineering or Other States

    But as far as This MBBS Admission is concerned, in Tamil Nadu it is based upon 12th Marks and in that girls outscore boys and hence they enter in huge numbers

  4. Abi said...

    Gaddeswarup: Thanks for those encouraging words! I too am learning a lot from this debate on reservation, and whenever I find something interesting, I will continue to write about it.

    Neela: I think the IITs are an exception. The ratio in other engineering colleges is not as skewed as it is in the IITs (with less than 10%). In medicine, on the other hand, Dr. Bruno informs us that women actually outnumber men in TN (and probably in other states as well).

    So, I would actually pose the question the other way: What's wrong with JEE, which seems to select a nearly all-male student body for the IITs?