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India’s caste system limits diversity in science

nature.com

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Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#41

Post by HarryHirsch »

petilon wrote: post #24
acdha wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting editorial - it doesn't match what I've heard from multiple people and especially seems hard to reconcile with things like the more recent discussions and lawsuits regarding caste in Silicon Valley: https://qz.com/apple-meta-and-google-must-fight-caste-discri...

Look, if someone files a racial discrimination lawsuit against your company then does that prove that everyone in your company is racist?

Accounting firms know that tone is set at the top - look at FTX if you don't believe. Leadership sets the company climate, no one else has the power.

When it reaches the stage when actual lawsuits are filed it means that the situation is grave. Most labour disputes are settled informally. The ones that end in front of a judge are usually the ones with merit, the filing party will have consulted with an attorney who will have advised against proceeding if the case isn't watertight.

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#42

Post by petilon »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #2

Forget about diversity. When a society excludes whole classes of people from fields of study or professions, that society also limits the pool of talent available. Excluding women, castes, races, ethnicities seems like a poor choice for any society that wants to advance as a whole.

Here are the facts about women in India:

Technology firms in India have a better female to male staff ratio than the tech giants of Silicon Valley [1]. India has a much better male-to-female ratio compared with the U.S. Engineering male-female ratio in India is 1.96 as compared with 4.61 in the U.S.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-professional/2015/jun/2...

[2] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/engineering-...

What India Can Teach Silicon Valley About Its Gender Problem https://www.wired.com/2014/08/silicon-valley-sexism/

https://blog.hackerrank.com/which-countries-have-the-most-sk...

The 2015 stackoverflow survey has this interesting statement: "Developers in India are 3-times more likely to be female than developers in the United States." See https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2015 Actually it is worse than it sounds because most of the female developers in the United States are first generation immigrants from Asia and Eastern Europe.

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#43

Post by bigtex »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #25
petilon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Untrue. You can get people to complain about anything, that doesn't make it true.

Just want to point out that the unnatural vigor with which HN and other forums reject the idea of Caste Discrimination is telling. If this were White on Minority racism for instance people defending it in this way would be ostracized and most would say that it this type of discrimination is beyond the pale and call for vigorous investigation into the claims. Instead all we see about Caste discrimination is "it doesn'…

That is exactly the point I was going to make. Thank you.

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#44

Post by flashgordon »

throwaway_9120 wrote: post #40

This is a poorly researched article that just put forward one side of the story. Ask the general category students about it and they will tell you how they are deprived of opportunities because of quota system. For those unaware of quota system in India, in easy words, it is somewhat similar to this analogy- There is a 100m race. 'General' category, SC/ST category, OBC category participates in that same race. For Gen…

Is there stats on what the population/percentage representation of folks in these 3 categories are?

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#45

Post by richbell »

keewee7 wrote: post #18
richbell wrote: post #10

This is a real problem that doesn't get as much attention as it ought to. Google canceled a planned talk about this earlier this year. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/02/google-...

Why should Google let Tamil ethno-nationalists like Thenmozhi hold a talk?

> Why should Google let Tamil ethno-nationalists like Thenmozhi hold a talk?

Can you elaborate on why she is a "Tamil ethno-nationalist", and why this should disqualify her from giving a talk about caste equality?

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#46

Post by richbell »

petilon wrote: post #42
CharlieDigital wrote: post #2

Forget about diversity. When a society excludes whole classes of people from fields of study or professions, that society also limits the pool of talent available. Excluding women, castes, races, ethnicities seems like a poor choice for any society that wants to advance as a whole.

Here are the facts about women in India: Technology firms in India have a better female to male staff ratio than the tech giants of Silicon Valley [1]. India has a much better male-to-female ratio compared with the U.S. Engineering male-female ratio in India is 1.96 as compared with 4.61 in the U.S. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-professional/2015/jun/2... [2] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog…

What's the breakdown of women in the context of this discussion (caste)? Is there an equitable ratio?

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#47

Post by yowzadave »

throwaway_9120 wrote: post #40

This is a poorly researched article that just put forward one side of the story. Ask the general category students about it and they will tell you how they are deprived of opportunities because of quota system. For those unaware of quota system in India, in easy words, it is somewhat similar to this analogy- There is a 100m race. 'General' category, SC/ST category, OBC category participates in that same race. For Gen…

> after entering the institute, they are unable to cope up with the rigor and fail or drop out.

I'm curious, what's your theory for why these individuals are not performing at the level of the top students from other castes? The obvious answer would be that due to a history of discrimination and/or limited opportunities, they haven't been able to flourish in the same way. But according to you:

> Successive Indian govts have taken several measures to ensure they are not deprived.

So what is it?

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#48

Post by maheshs »

throwaway_9120 wrote: post #40

This is a poorly researched article that just put forward one side of the story. Ask the general category students about it and they will tell you how they are deprived of opportunities because of quota system. For those unaware of quota system in India, in easy words, it is somewhat similar to this analogy- There is a 100m race. 'General' category, SC/ST category, OBC category participates in that same race. For Gen…

Throwaway can explain everything

>General category start line is a 0 mark and finish line at 100m mark its BS

Let me explain OBC - around 48% of population SC/ST - around 27% of population General category - around 30% of population That's why Gov is not doing caste census

Entire reservation is only 50% so remaining 50% for general

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#49

Post by throwaway_9120 »

flashgordon wrote: post #44
throwaway_9120 wrote: post #40

This is a poorly researched article that just put forward one side of the story. Ask the general category students about it and they will tell you how they are deprived of opportunities because of quota system. For those unaware of quota system in India, in easy words, it is somewhat similar to this analogy- There is a 100m race. 'General' category, SC/ST category, OBC category participates in that same race. For Gen…

Is there stats on what the population/percentage representation of folks in these 3 categories are?

Yes. OBC ~ 52%, SC/ST ~ 22%. Rest General.

Source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India#Caste

(Though it refers to a 1983 report but more or less this proportion remain the same.)

Re: India’s caste system limits diversity in science

#50

Post by maheshs »

raincom wrote: post #38
ByAnyOtherName wrote: post #32

One of the things missing in this article is that the reservation system by design results in quota students typically being less prepared/qualified. These students then enroll in, say, IIT, and many of them perform poorly due to, well, lack of merit. And this poor performance contributes heavily to the lack of continuity on to further, and higher studies. Who is responsible to fix this? If institutions were stricter…

No political party in India wants to abolish reservation policies. Beneficiaries, along with political parties, make a big deal, if the reservation system is abolished. The whole government bureaucracy is corrupt to the core, where incompetence is prized. One contribution to this incompetence is the reservation system.

Reservation comes in 1950, does India doing great before that?
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