Sarva Quota Abhiyan

Well, with all this racket over the decision to increase quotas for OBCs(Other Backward Castes) in India, I figured it was time I added my voice.

Now, I'm not exactly for quotas in any form, but since we already have them, and are not going to do away with it any time soon (for reasons regarding political expediency), we might as well have quotas for everybody. Yes sir! Hence the title of this post "Sarva Quota Abhiyan"(Quota for all scheme).

Why just restrict quotas to only a few classes like SCs(Scheduled Castes), STs(Scheduled Tribes), OBCs, and MBCs(Most Backward Castes). Let's include all other groups of castes, such as WTWBCs(We Think We're Backward Castes), WWBBCs(We Wanna Be Backward Castes), WGLBANWBCs(We Got Left Behind And Now We're Backward Castes), and the Undecided, who don't know anything about their castes(Can't leave out anyone now, can we?).

On a more serious note, reservations ought to be on the basis of economics, not birth. So, maybe we can base reservation on some threshold determined by the student's family's tax records. This would probably be a boon, as it would force everybody to register with the income tax department. On the other hand, the tax department would need to be bolstered, so that it can prevent underdisclosure of income.

But, frankly, it makes a lot more sense than the solutions that are currently being discussed. It's important to note that reservations are a pretty nifty way of uplifting backward classes, there are many examples of people getting in on a reserved seat, turning out to be quite successful. It's just that caste-based reservations aren't theway to go.

Down with variety

Variety is the spice of life, so they say. But, in the Indian entertainment business, it's bad for your bottomline. A good example is the recent case of Go 92.5 FM.

Go was a radio station that played a good amount of English music. The rest of the private radio stations in Mumbai play entirely Hindi music, and that too only recent stuff. You don't get too much of classic Hindi music during prime time. Then all of a sudden, Go decides to switch to playing only Hindi music. Now, with the Himesh fixation, browsing through channels is like Himesh, some other silly song, Himesh, some stupid remix, Himesh again, and All India Radio(AIR), the public broadcaster.

Now, we have lost seriously nice programs like "The Night Shift", which played quality English classics, and even had a special hour devoted to rock music.

The only oasis left in this desert is AIR, which still plays a few hours of English music. It even plays Western Classical, cool. And somebody said that private companies are better than government-controlled ones?

Probably, the only reason that AIR still plays western music, is that, being state-controlled, it doesn't have to fight for survival. So, it doesn't have to worry about mass appeal. A real pity actually.

Let's hope the policy for granting licences to radio stations changes to improve the variety of programs we get to hear.