Mandal 2 is hitting India, Quotas aren't anti-merit.

Merit is central to education. But education is not merely safegaurding the existing notions of merit. In its essence, education is about influencing processes of socialization and community building. Affirmative action policies including caste reservations can have a positive impact in making a socity egalitarian. Does this come at the expense of excellence? Social indicators reveal that southern states and parts of western India have fared much better socially and economically than the rest of the country despite having caste-based reservations for decades. High levels of social and political consciousness, in comparision to parts of India which did not follow policies of affirmative action, have been largely responsible for those achievements. Access to education contributed significantly to this. In short, affirmative action did not compromise on merit, but instead empowered a wide spectrum of the population to aspire to social and economic mobility. Among those who succeeded were comunities that had been left out of the social mainstream and also happened to constitute majority of the population. A society where portals of 'merit' are restricted to a privileged minority especially when the privilege is determined at birth, is a regressive society.
In this particular case of extending reservations to OBCs is central institutions, such provisions already exist in many state-run universities and professional colleges. This should be an opportinuty for IITs and IIMs to increase their student intake. The real challenge is to ensure that democrasation of education does not lead to massicification of education.
Quantity and quality are not incompatiable entiites. Quotas in institutions have to be understood as an instrument to create opportnuties for those who have been denied access to knowledge for social reasons. Quotas aren't anit-merit. Merit is a category that is influnced by social and economic hierarchies. It can become an instrument of oppression if its social context is not understood. This also applies to those wish to use reservations as an instrument to further the politics of caste identity.

-Bugs!
It's comment made by an open mind, and is open for debate...