Alma-mat(t)ers!!

I am definitely intimidated by the recent changes introduced in the JEE system, "supposedly" for the "betterment of country".
Arjun Singh has had his way of increasing the total number of seats, more IITs , reservation of 50% for lower caste students. I see these changes as nothing more than a cheap political move to tighten reins on his kursi by pandering to people. This move has had devastating repercussions of lowering down the cut offs to single digits for various subjects. Cut off for physics brought down to ZERO! And five and three are the numbers for Chemistry and Mathematics. Please refer to this nonsensical article: Article1

Are you kidding me? Why even have an exam ?
I was open to the idea of increasing the number of seats or having reservations but not to a deplorable number of 50 % of seats.

Adding to this ridiculous piece of news is another crappy news which reviews the changes proposed by IITM's Dean and Director. What angers me more is that this comes from within IIT administration : Article2

IITM's Dean wants to get away with JEE? WTF! And, the explanation given is to increase the number of ''female students'' through direct admissions.

IITM's Director wants to get away with the proliferation of coaching classes who prepare students mechanically to crack JEEs by allowing only top 1% from state boards to appear for the JEE exam. I totally appreciate his concern but this concern definitely is not the urgency of the hour. There are other important issues weighing down the system to be tackled and worried about. Coaching classes have been the talk of the town for the last ten years. The Director of IITM says that he is looking for students with raw intelligence and not the students mechanically maneuvered to crack JEE by coaching classes. Well, a laudable concern but the idea of letting only the top 1% from various state boards to appear for JEEs is completely ridiculous as the latter idea targets the students who fare well in class by cramming techniques and have been mechanically trained to do so by a different set of coaching classes. The element of mechanical training still remains. The very idea of "raw-intelligence" seems defeated. For me, it is like saying in order to lose weight lets get away with potatoes but wait nothing is wrong with having icecream . Mr MS Ananth's idea will just result in mushrooming up of different kind of coaching classes catering to other needs. Coaching classes will invariably spring up no matter what changes are made, it seems more logical to come up with ideas which will make JEE unpredictable to coaching classes . Also, different state boards have different syllabus and different marking schemes. How will Mr. Ananth's new idea ensure the equality of opportunity to students?

Enough damage has already been done to the IIT system by an unwanted government interference. Things like changing the pattern of questions every year thereby making it unpredictable for coaching classes and taking them by a surprise, introducing the concept of interviews , basing exam papers on school boards in order to not let the 12 year schooling go down the drain , are a few things that come to my mind which will retain system's quality inspite of increasing the intake by a humongous number.