Chances are that the medical students and their sundry brethren sitting on a relay hunger strike against the Central Educational Institutions (Reservations in Admissions) Bill, 2006 have not heard of the Ganguly Committee’s “100-point” criteria governing nursery admissions in Delhi’s private schools. There is no reason why they should. Their early school years are far behind them and they have a while to go before joining the ranks of harried young parents in search of the ideal environment to plant their toddlers in. Besides, their current agitation is on a far loftier plane. It is a battle against caste-based reservations and the “creamy layer”, against the dilution of “merit” and the perniciousness of “vote-bank” politics — easily the most demonised term in the lexicon of India’s self-avowed meritorious minority.

But as they wrestle with hunger and anger in the prestigious precincts of AIIMS and IIT, the best and brightest young minds in India might profit by studying the Ganguly Committee recommendations. And some of them might even begin to see a connection between the mindset underlying the new policy on school admissions and the renewed thrust on reservations by legislators across the country.

The Ganguly Committee has devised a point system that private schools must follow. There has been much debate over the points given to the “neighbourhood” criterion (20 if the child lives within a radius of 3 km, nil if above 10 km) and much applause for the gender-sensitive five points for a girl child and equally for the five points allotted to ‘any child with special needs.’

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