Boosting entrepreneurship
Apropos of the interview “Startups need more than just an idea” (FE, August 24), while the idea is important, it may take budding entrepreneurs six months to even a year or more to develop the idea into something people want to buy. Remember, a product is deemed good only if people know that it is good. Jerome Booth shares the example of the Anglia Ruskin University—which was judged the Entrepreneurial University of the Year at the Times Higher Education Awards in 2014—which makes us think how can such a culture be developed in Indian universities and institutes of higher education. Clearly, we have spend a lot of time fostering entrepreneurship and working to try and create job opportunities for our students. As far as the government role is concerned, we believe the two best roles the government can play are removing infrastructural bottlenecks and reducing bureaucratic hurdles.
Prabhash Kumar
Gurgaon
Merit matters, not caste
The ongoing unrest by the Patel community in Gujarat over reservations in government jobs can be attributed to the caste quota system that has been pursued by successive central governments ever since the provision of reservations for the most economically backward sections such as SCs and STs mooted by BR Ambedkar. Even the caste has become a part of the Census under the guise of demographic profiling. The rabble-rousing and seeking quota for a certain community is not uncommon in a country where a number of caste and sub-caste affiliations define employment in the public sector. Such protestations and reservation policy based on caste do not augur well for creating an egalitarian society. While it is utopian to expect the caste quota in the public sector to end, it remains to be seen whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi deals with the stir with an iron hand or lets it spiral out of control for bigger ramifications for the ruling dispensation.
R Prabhu Raj
Bangalore
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