Cause and effect
There are suggestions that a PR firm has a role in the reservation drama, writes Anupam Thapa.
It can’t get any queerer. The latest on the reservation hullabaloo is that a Gurgaon-based public relations company has been hired to spruce up the cause of the striking doctors.
This, apparently, happened just a couple of days ago, before the government announced the implementation of reservation for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) from 2007.
While it sure sounds stunning, the details of who is funding the PR operation are still unknown. It’s a tight-lipped affair handled by that division of the company, which interacts with the government.
Vested interest
While the doctors’ tussle with the government gets dramatic by the day — with Rang De Basanti flavour, and support coming in from across the country, one wonders if some vested group is adding fuel to the fire in the minds of the agitating doctors and using them for its own benefit? Is the work of the PR firm to lobby and gain support for the cause in the government and get some policy changes done, to help its clients?
Ugly scars
Meanwhile, the reservation issue has left ugly scars in the campus as well as in the hospitals.
According to a PG student of Lady Hardinge Medical College, “Everybody looks down upon you if you are a reserved category student. We have problems in vivas, thesis, everywhere. There is competition even within the reserved category. With the kind of marks I scored in my PG entrance, I could have easily got admission to a PG course even if I was competing as a general category doctor.”
He adds that after entry into the medical college, reservation doesn’t help much “as a student has to pass all the exams to become a doctor and passing marks are same for all.
So, you cannot question the merit of a doctor from a reserved category” We’ve all been keenly following the reservation drama. Is it really stage managed?