Article in "The Tribune" ...

Corporates to join anti-quota stir
Smriti Kak Ramachandran
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 23
After the medicos it is the corporates who have joined the anti-quota juggernaut. Faced with the possibility of having to provide reservation, corporates have begun hectic parleys to draw up their blueprint for protest.

While the corporates had come out in support of the agitating doctors, they have now resolved to “take on” the issue of reservation in a more “organised way”.

Opposed to “any kind of reservation”, the corporates have criticised the government for contemplating “a legislation to bring in reservation”.

Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Meira Kumar yesterday warned the private sector that the Centre would be forced to bring in a legislation if they fail to provide voluntary reservation.

Reacting to the statement, Saikat who works for a multinational company said, ‘we have supported the medicos, but now we are in the process of streamlining our protest. We have begun meetings to draw up plans for what our future course of action will be”.

An employee of another private concern, Sandipan, pointed out that if reservations are forced on the private sector, “it will have an adverse affect on the prospects of the candidates from the reserved categories. Companies will discriminate against them because they may not have the required merit”.

Cautioning that if the government does not alter its stance on reservation in the academic as well as private sectors, the corporates said they “ will take to the streets in far greater numbers than the medicos”.

Indicating that they too might take the resort to hunger strike, the corporates said they are mobilising support from their counterparts across the country.

Meanwhile, having refused to call off their stir despite the Prime Minister’s repeated assurances, medical students’ who continue their hunger strike, accept they have reached “a deadlock”, but are quick to add that this has not “demoralised” them.

On hunger strike for the last 10 days, protesting medicos acknowledge that their demand for a review of the existing reservation policy is not “an easy one”, they are, however, insistent that the review “is overdue and that reservation of up to 50 percent is unacceptable”.

“We have sought a review of the policy and neither the government nor the political parties have extended their support to us. But we remain committed to our struggle,” said Dr Vinod of the Youth for Equality.

While support from seniors in the profession and their faculty has been trickling in, the medicos are now banking heavily on the support from corporates and other professionals, who are also facing the possibility of having to provide reservation.

"....The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind...."