New Delhi
Mr. Arjun Singh, Union Minister for Human Resources Development, today demanded a 49.5% quota for Other Backward Classes in the visas issued by the US Government to workers seeking to enter the United States.This comes in the wake of his decision to extend quotas in India's famed IITs and IIMs to this same percentage.
Mr. Singh has justified his demand by saying that with the opposition of Corporate India to the reservations, it was clear that they would be staying away from recruiting from these institutes. Hence there was a need to 'absorb' their graduates and who better to do so than the Immigration Department of the United States of America.
The United States Government has reacted sharply to the proposal and has refused to bow down to the demands of the Indian Government. It has threatened to derail the Indo-US Nuclear agreement, if the Indian Government pushed the Reservation demand too hard.
