M A I N   N E W S

Quota: IIT students mull class boycott
Arup Chanda

Chennai, April 16
Students of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, are planning to boycott classes to mark their protest against the proposal to increase reservation in IITs and IIMs.

However, the IIT(M) management is totally silent on the issue and faculty members have been strictly advised not to open their mouth. It is probably sheer fright, which is keeping them silent because in Tamil Nadu the reservation is 69 per cent in state educational institutions and people who have voiced their opposition in the past had also been physically harmed. Despite repeated attempts IIT(M) Director Prof. M. S. Ananth refused to meet this correspondent on the plea that “no official communication has come and we cannot comment on the issue at present.”

However, one of the faculty members who has been teaching for more than 22 years, asked, “Will anyone hire an engineer who got admission because of his caste and not merit?”