Finally something to cheer about!

Neha mailed to ask me if I had followed an NDTV story about "children getting ill and not enough facilities being there...again irony being the chief minister himself is a qualified doctor", and since I am working hard to earn a tag of 'Media Basher', she added "thought u might be interested to know, coz the media brought a worthy issue in front of ppl as compared to rakhi sawant and mika's kiss issue."I told her that I didn't see this particular story and that NDTV is a saner channel than others but I wasn't sure that media would have left such a 'juicy' story as Ms. Sawant-Mr. Mika liplock! My suspicions proved right when I read the article of Poonam Saxena in Hindustan Times (June 17th).

But NDTV has got its chest-thumping moment and mercifully without any sting operation!

Their story of DPS Dwarka refusing admission to CBSE High School topper Garima Godara on the pretexts of a) her spoken-english being not good enough and b) her not fitting the required social profile for the students, attracted not only sharp protests from all quarters, but also made the school revrse its own decision. Delhi Government constituted an enquiry and Garima was offerred admission with scholarship from another DPS branch. (Ironically Chairman of DPS Board is another Congressman, Salman Khursheed!) Many other schools offerred her adimission and scholarship as well. And Garima and her parents ensured that their reply get as befitting as it could be! They refused the DPS offer and decided to continue with present school only.

The worst aspect of this issue is that school made a mockery of merit. If DPS wants its seats to be reserved for the kids of politicians,beaurocrats and businessmen (in other only for rich and influential) then they can put that before us! (Though everyone knows that only rich can afford their fee, but then Garima's family sold their land for her education, so in a way they might have thought they were rich enough!)

This was only one instance of a deserving candidate being turned down by an institution, which got caught on camera. And it exposed the real admission policy of the school. Let's hope that greater public awareness and closer government scrutiny will ensure that other so called 'reputed institutes' consider only merit as the selection criteria.

Congratulations Garima. Thank you NDTV.

Also read: The English Divide by Barkha Dutt (Managing Editor, NDTV 24x7)