Days ago, Beteille had written to PM about intention to quit

The government’s silence on the matter prompted him to quit, they said.

In the letter, he had said that one cannot build a knowledge society with the extension of caste-based quotas. ‘‘You can either have massive quotas or create institutions of excellence. Both cannot co-exist,’’ he had written.

He had stressed the fact that if the things went the quota way, he ‘‘may not have anything useful to contribute to building a knowledge-based society’’.

Beteille, who is also Chancellor of the Northeastern Hill University (Shillong), had said that he will watch the developments and try to meet the Prime Minister before taking any decision.

Beteille, when contacted, confirmed the contents of his letter and said,‘‘I wrote the letter, after our (NKC members) meeting with the Prime Minister on May 10. I was not happy with the way things were shaping up at that juncture, so I wrote a letter to the PM putting everything on-record.’’

‘‘I then left for China and returned on Sunday morning (May 21st) and found that there had been no improvement in the situation. So I decided to quit. I apologised to the PM for not meeting him before taking the decision.’’

When Beteille, along with NKC’s member-convenor Pratap Bhanu Mehta, decided to quit, other NKC members tried to dissuade them. Said NKC member Ashok Ganguly (former chairman of Hindustan Lever),‘‘Other than myself, the Chairman (Sam Pitroda), Deepak (Nayyar), Nandan (Nilekani) … tried to dissuade them, but they had made up their mind. I feel sad about losing two of our most learned members.’’

Fight for and against continues

• AHMEDABAD: Doctors and medical students in Gujarat on Tuesday decided to follow up their anti-reservation rallies and demonstration for the past nine days with the next step, an indefinite hungerstrike starting Wednesday. Students of B J Medical College and other medical colleges here will start the hungerstrike, a student representative said. Over 600 resident doctors of the civil hospital are supporting the agitation with a 72-hour strike starting Tuesday evening. The emergency and OPD services will be handled by the faculty during the period, hospital sources said.

• VADODARA: 400 junior doctors of the SSG hospital are on an indefinite strike while some of the doctors will begin a 72-hour hungerstrike on Wednesday against the quota proposal. Students and doctors in Rajkot, Jamnagar, Surat and other cities of Gujarat have been agitating against the proposal for 27 per cent reservation for OBCs in premier educational institutions.

• MUMBAI: Two groups of IIT-Bombay students are on an indefinite hungerstrike, one in favour of and the other against the reservation proposals of the HRD Ministry. A group of 39 students, began a hungerstrike on Monday against reservation. Their other demand was to appoint a judicial, non-political committee to review the government proposal, and to see whether it was based on facts and figures. ‘‘We, the students, feel that the government is trying to divide us,’’ the students said. Meanwhile, two of the 22 IIT students on strike supporting quota for OBCs started their hungerstrike on Tuesday night. ‘‘Reservation is one of the tools for bringing social justice but certainly not the only tool,’’ said a student. IIT-B has 22.5 per cent reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the IIT management said.