“UPSC is quite over-hyped. For instance, this year, two Kashmiris achieved a monumental feat by receiving the prestigious Rhodes scholarship, considered the epitome of academic excellence globally. Despite its significance, all major local newspapers overlooked this achievement. Had it been about UPSC, headlines would have flooded the papers. The disparity in coverage raises concerns about society’s fixation on UPSC, overshadowing other remarkable accomplishments. Securing the Rhodes scholarship is as noteworthy as cracking UPSC, yet our societal narrative remains fixated on the latter. If a person who finds his name at the bottom of selection list makes headlines, why doesn’t a remarkable feat like getting Rhodes scholarship even find mention in the last pages of newspapers? This reflects as how we as a society has become obsessed with UPSC, which is taking a heavy toll on intellectual growth of our youth. They are not able to think beyond UPSC. ”

https://kashmirobserver.net/2024/05/18/yes-upsc-is-good-but-there-are-far-better-options/#google_vignette

You agree with this?

Did you exhaust your limit of (what is it, 2?) attempts to apply for the Rhodes, and get rejected both times? Sour grapes much? Or alternatively, may I ask who died and made you the arbiter on what is more or less 'tough' or 'useful'? Exactly. Nobody. As someone beautifully said in response to Trump's s**hl remark, 'he'll go into the same hole, where the same worms will eat into him'. My personal suggestion: this remark applies equally well to you. Therefore, go away there and let fate take its course, instead of bothering serious people who wish to have a serious discussion with your deeply unpleasant vibe, which combines victimhood mentality + sour grapes.

Funny how the parents of most of my batchmates were government officers, particularly in the civil services. As if the stability their parents gave them didn't pave the way for them to appear and Crack Clat without much work and allows them to take stupid risks.

Check your privilege. Read a module or two which you probably skipped in law school cause you were too busy being cool and partying. Gosh.

Forgot to add this. You clearly have no ability to engage in self reflection. If you did, you'd know that your point isn't clear.

Somebody once accused Sudhir of speaking with 'a characteristic sting'. Frankly, if you represent the average quality at NLS these days, you'll need 10 professors + Sudhir to have the balls to speak to you with a 'characteristic sting'. If you are not from NLS and you don't have professors who don't know what's what, I have no solution to save you. Tell me your name and you will be in my prayers every day. I will send you good thoughts every day.

I can't believe how triggered one can be over such a simple remark. I know from your comment you couldn't even secure a job, let alone come close to clearing UPSC.

Rhodes scholars are lucky nerds given scholarship to study at some university where thousands go every year anyway. Clearing UPSC sets you up for an upper middleclass existence at the very minimum for the rest of your life. If anyone says Rhodes >> UPSC it is quite clear that person will not go on to achieve in life, even with all the privileges in the world.

Ever heard of Brian Leiter, the American Jurisprude? Bet you haven't. He once said that he tends to get 'very angry' when people talk bullshit about legal philosophy. Like him, there's something that makes me 'very angry' as well. And that's people (trolls) like you deliberately (a) misleading people; and (b) trying to limit other peoples' aspirations.

Absolutely! The English could be a bit less interesting at points, but he definitely gets this right. However, I do think that he may be overstating the problem (of judging people just by performance in UPSC) to a certain extent. I think his portrayal of the problem would have aligned more with what was the case a few years ago, but not to such a great extent today; that's not to say, though, that he isn't wrong to focus on the problem to the extent it exists today, especially if it manifests itself by things like Rhodes winners not receiving the coverage they so clearly deserve.

The voting pattern tells you about the mindset of law school kids these days. They seem to consider a mugging up exam for hicks like the UPSC more prestigious and coveted than the Rhodes 🙄🙄🙄 I presume these are the same geniuses who hate Sudhir for imposing strict academic standards and glorify mediocre profs who hand out easy grades?

Bro its not T1 law school students. Most of the readers here are non t1 and from non metro cities. We all know that in villages and Tier 2 cities of India there is no privatisation and no corporates/industries. So for generations these people have been inbred with the idea that UPSC is the best and highest paying job. Times have changes now, and qualified professionals from top tier colleges can easily out earn UPSC people. But you will not be able to change their colonial mindset. Let them drop 5 years for 0.1 percent chance at success. Karma and fate will change their opinion over how a mugging up cringe fest of an exam where you can take Sanskrit as an optional and become a fucking revenue officer which defies all logic of selection and is nothing more than a colonial yoke, is not the epitome of success.

Top comment. It does seem from the comments on LI that most of the users are from non-metros and non-T1 law schools, as you say. From that perspective, the UPSC stanning and Rhodes dissing makes sense. We shouldn't be too upset about it because Rhodes is still considered more prestigious among the NLU kids who matter and the really bright ones will always choose Rhodes over UPSC.

How many INR in bribes for your mum/dad/uncles/aunts/cousins/yourself/your other family members/friends did me and my parents, honest-to-god, hard-working class taxpayers, who come from the sort of stock that believes in doing whatever it takes (within the law and bounds of our morality) to make life better for our kids than it was for us, have to pay for? I only ask this question because nobody who didn't want to spread lies and fool the people of India would waste folks' time with such rubbish.

That's because they use some chacha mama connections to get into government and don't want to do the work. That's no reason to disrespect the hardworking people who want to give back to their country. Nothing from the internet connection on which you type this bullshit to the imported phone that you are probably using would be possible without "these rural and lower-middle class people who obsess over government jobs", get them and then do them well. Show some gratitude.

What. Show gratitude for the sorts of guys who thought it'd be a good idea to order a hit on a Canadian citizen on Canadian shores? Gratitude for allowing you guys to enjoy a culture of promotion despite mediocrity and take our taxes? Gratitude for the sorts of people who kissed the a*** of the Soviets for years, while pretending our country was 'non-aligned'? Gratitude for the sorts of people who were responsible for foreign law firms being unable to enter this market?

Don't give me that *** about internet connections etc. I am a blind person who comes from a well-educated family. The government (you so-called hard workers) did fuck all to ensure I got an education. My dad sacrificed hundreds of thousands of INR, and my mother her job and her time, to ensure I did. I showed gratitude to the right people who actually made sacrifices for me and deserved it by doing well in my studies and going to law school in England (where I am now). As we're anyway engaged in d** measuring, you want to know what the Limeys do? They actually pay for the special educational needs support that disabled citizens of their country or those with a right to permanent residence there have. And you know what is the only thing I get from the people to whom I, according to you, am supposed to show gratitude do? Ask my mother at Bangalore Airport every year when I come back for a short vacation, 'Ma'am, what is wrong with his [my] eyes?'. You don't deserve gratitude, you deserve a good tongue-lashing, which you'll never get in this country.

And before you can give me the entire 'Oh there are blind people being successful in India at our law schools', sure. I know a guy from a prominent NLU (one of the so-called T1 type) that was telling me that he'd have to pay for his own support assistant when he started in a job after graduating law school. He was supported by IDIA, a private organisation, during his university studies, not by those whom we're supposed to show 'gratitude' to. And look up Access to Work in Britain before giving me any further bullshit about gratitude. So go touch some grass and get in the bin.

I understand where you get your sense of injury from but it has no relationship to this conversation. You understand that you and your parents can be hardworking and still get nowhere without public infrastructure right? Do you think everyone who works gets somewhere? Do you think that the relatively affordable good education of NLUs is private? Have you missed all the land acquisition and public funding that created these institutions. Or that IDIA was started by a public university profession with support from the university and students who were willing to their labor for free into building it and his classmates whose earnings came from their education at a public universities. Without public universities, there would be no IDIA.

Your precious Britain has had its school free lunch program cancelled and its university staff are out protesting because their work conditions are terrible. The irony is that this access to work you love so much is a public program. Rhodes scholars can't make that in India but bureaucrats and politicians can. If you want to sit somewhere else and complain, that's within your rights. You certainly have good reasons to complain. But it is these UPSC people you look down your nose at who might make things better. If you want to be childish enough to extend your ire against a few public servants into a vendetta against all of them, feel free.

The original writer of this comment certainly messed up a number of arguments (in justifiable but regrettable) anger. But as we're on the subject of Britain, are you aware that civil servants (the FDA union) are conducting a judicial review of the government's plan to send asylum seakers to Rwanda? Would you UPSC types ever have the balls to do that? What happened in 1976 and on a number of other occasions? Simple. No you wouldn't, because you know you'd be in a job centre having to fill out job applications if you even whispered ideas for such a thing.

As for the NLU thing, I think you're playing into (that comment's) OP's hands. Anyone who did some basic research would know that the NLU institutions are public. And you still haven't responded to the IDIA point. It is exactly the point the angry guy is making. IDIA may have been at a public uni, but it ain't government-supported.

And as for this entire thing of Free School Meals getting cancelled, that is doubtful (I don't know enough), and the UCU protest, I really get the anger on this one. Just because other countries have problems means we should as well? You UPSC types have learned way too well from the Russians. Classic Russian dark humour: things are shitty elsewhere, so let's not do anything to ensure they become less shitty here, as long as that means that our own lives are not-so-shitty. The classic UPSC mentality.

I am more of a "Rhodes type" than a "UPSC type". I just find this entire conversation classist, distasteful and complete disgrace. The problem with the NLUs is the spreading of this ignorant superiority complex. The bottomline is that very few of these private initiatives you love so much are possible without the public money and public servants that created resources for them. I have respect and gratitude for these things and what they made possible for me. If you want to sneer at them and feel superior, please go right ahead.

Fascination with government jobs is atypical for a country at the lower end of the development spectrum, since the government plays such an important role in their lives, especially those living in tier 2 towns. Mediocre people who don't stand out on their own seek institutional pedigree. People from developed countries as well those from elite backgrounds in India don't want to spend their lives pushing papers for semi educated politicians and seek solace in being government clerks. They wish to solve genuine problems and create wealth. Unfortunately it seems with the passage of time the cohort at Indian law schools has moved from metropolitan kids with elite backgrounds to small towners. This is reflected by the fascination with a bygone era relic like UPSC

Please take your elitism and snobbishness elsewhere. As someone who has lived in the west, your point about the mentality of people in developed countries towards serving their country is, at best, a very broad generalisation.

- In Britain, look at who gets recruited to the diplomatic, civil and intelligence services: folks with good education (usually from Oxbridge or one of the other Russell Group unis).

- In the U.S., too, this similar trend can be seen. As a case study, take the profile of the first blind person to be recruited to the diplomatic service of the U.S. Department of State, Avraham Rabby. Rabby was born in Israel, was sent to school in England after his eyes' retinas were damaged and continued his studies there (reading French and Spanish at Oxford after school), before immigrating to the U.S., doing an MBA at Chicago, working for City Bank and only joining the State Department in his late 40's. Considering his background, he was fluent in four languages: English, French, Hebrew and Spanish.

Where you are right is that India has been unable to recruit people with the Rabby-type profile, because of the deeply problematic nature of our government recruitment processes. Therefore, instead of focussing on the origins of those commenting in favour of government jobs, comment on the mediocrity of those who are recruited (how come, e.g., an Indian IFS Officer isn't expected to know at least two UN working languages at the point of applying to the foreign service, where her UK or U.S. counterpart would have navigated such an expectation?). Focussing on the localities/origins of people who 'obsess' over these jobs would be like someone (using the example above) like someone saying Rabby was incapable of serving his adopted country because of his blindness (something which some, at the time of his recruitment (1989), did say unfortunately).

You have made a very broad generalization of a point that OP is not even emphasizing on. He is talking about the mad craze of govt jobs witnessed in Tier 2 cities and villages of India and similar sentiments being absent in the developed west.

As someone who has worked for a major time in US, this is the first question I asked to a couple of General Counsels of Fortune 500 companies (who had also been attorneys in the past) that is there a craze for govt job in US like that in India?

The unequivocal answer I got is that there is literally zero craze. In fact generally people who cannot become entrepreneurs or professionals or join corporates try to be paper pushers in govt departments. Again generally, not always.

The craze is only for higher level political posts. NOT GOVT JOBS.

No where in the developed world like US and even in UK itself will you ever come across a concept like "IAS". Ofcourse they have civil and public services but no concept of a single country wide unified cadre like IAS which will sit at creamy posts across the nation. Stupidity. Promotes mediocrity. In fact in USA, govt services are not that hyped at all. It is the attorneys or doctors or startup and show biz guys and sports and entertainment industries that are the most sought after careers. There is no unhealthy obsession with govt jobs.

In UK and US a post like DM doesn't even exist. In US you can start as a patrol cop and rise all the way up to become police chief. These services were created by British to rule over Indian "slaves", the format of civil services should have been totally changed in 1947 and should have been built on a bottoms up approach. For eg you should start as Police Inspector and rise all the way to SP etc. Only in India you have this stupid concept of giving an exam for top post directly. If everyone rises from bottom to up, egos are less, efficiency is more. Recruit from Inspector level and make that exam very competitive. Any ways once you remove all the VIP giri from these posts, half of the so called people who want to "serve the nation", will not even sit for these exams. Indians' abnormal love affair with govt services should have stopped long ago. "Craze" is a sign of a mediocre country , we only need people who can serve the nation for actually serving. Those who will still serve the country if there is no corruption and no VIP giri attached to these posts those who are ready to start from the bottom and rise up.

Small misunderstanding here. I think we agree on more here than you realize. I am not even addressing OP's point. I am addressing the comment which seemed to imply that there is almost no desire for government jobs in western societies. I am saying that that is a broad generalisation. I admit my response may have made the same error to a certain extent, though.

I feel so depressed reading these comments and LI in general. The NLU crowd now has become so chhapri that Rhodes is mocked, as are Rhodes scholars like Sudhir Krishnaswamy. The “new Rhodes” is working as a bureaucrat in India, who is basically a glorified peon for half-literate politicians.😖 Imagine having to address class 8 pass goons as “Sir”. 🤢 🤮

So it is now chhapri to work to clear an exam open to everyone to support democratically elected representatives or keep them in check? How do you think democracies work exactly?

Of course it is very noble to get an elite scholarship instituted by a genocidal man and administered by a very elitist committee to study in one of the most racist institutions of the world.

I have nothing against Sudhir. He has proven himself to be much more than a Rhodes scholar especially through his institution building. You should ask yourself where your contempt for your own country and its people come from. Unless you are an upper class British man, the glorified peons are your people not the white racists however much you may wish otherwise.

Your insecurities are clearly revealed. Where is 'contempt for your own country' shown here? Contempt for people who are little more than glorified paper pushers, for whose ego/backside-massaging, kickbacks and bribes we, the taxpayers of this country, are sacrificing our hard-earned money is what is being displayed. Take your Bhakt-type beliefs, flag-waving and victimhood mentality where they belong - to the bin, and preferably try to stuff yourself down there along with all those unpleasant things.

Please go read a little abut bureaucracies. These white people whose feet you worship at invented in the Indian bureaucracy and its ego/backside-massaging, kickbacks and bribes .Please find me a bureaucracy of a large centrally administered country that does not push paper. Or may be you think elves co-ordinate everything. Newsflash, You can respect people who work for your country without being a bhakt. Not that anyone who sees Rishi Sunak and other elite snobs in expensive suits as the epitome of integrity would understand. I would tell you to stuff yourself in a bin but. you're pretty much there with your internalised racism.

I'm sorry, but if you think it's better to be a pen-pusher and bootlicker working for a semi-literate goon with criminal cases, rather than a professor at Oxford, then your mindset is indeed chapri. In fact, the reason India is underdeveloped and corrupt is because of the IAS and IPS.

Imagine not knowing what a bureaucrat does and posting ridiculous emojis like a fucking child here. Drop your fucking trope and get of the high horse, some jobs are more important and needed than others. I’m sorry my friend but going to a college by lying heaven and earth on your essay and on the basis of your sob stories is less important than taking healthcare, electricity to last village in this country. It is less important than policing, it is less important than maintaining diplomatic relations which helps you keep your asss safe in this country.

So you want to go to become a random scholar because you sold them some bullshit story with words like colonialism, post structuralism, humanitarianism thrown like confetti? Do it and boast and be happy in your Khan market parties

I think we'd all like to see your law school transcript, please, keyboard warrior, to know how many courses you failed in. I suspect the number would be something like 10 or 12, because you actually need substance in your stomach, rather than the ability to use curse words, to get scholarships like the Rhodes. Just using those words you so glibly used here doesn't help. You need to show them that you actually have some good ideas for research, which will lead to knowledge production. The fact that you haven't understood these basics shows that you, as much as the system, are deeply problematic: the fact that the system allowed you to become anything more than an 8th class pass being the problem, with the fact you got through law school at all adding insult to injury.

I don't know what kind of a rock you've been hiding under, mate, but that (trying to bring down people who are genuinely meritorious and promoting the mediocre) has been the problem with this thrice-damned country forever. The fact that the NLU institutions escaped it for as long as they did is a blessing in and of itself, I'd have thought!

OP please understand majority of law students of legally india are not from the top 3 NLUs. Also a majority of India is from non-metro cities, so of course UPSC is the "only bastion of success" for them. All these people saying UPSC is more tougher won't even stand a chance to qualify for Rhodes. So any point praising any job or any degree or any scholarship in the WORLD over UPSC will be downvoted to hell here. So don't even try.

Arrey in dehati UPSC waalon ke beech kaise phas gaya main! Ye wahi log hain na jo 5 saal drop karte hain ek exam nikaalne ke liye jiski chance 0.1 percent hai? (Matlab do the fucking maths!!) Fir jab selection nahi hota to Tier 2 ya choti moti govt job pakar ke aam aadmi (jo apne dam pe paisa kama raha hai) us pe apni bhdaas nikaalte hain. Theek hai jo bolna hai bol lo.

Ye tum jaise wanna be rhode-ies he belittle kar sakte ho kisi ki job ko choti moti bol ke. Khud toh bade Ambani ban jaate ho? Oops sorry tum toh wahi log ho na jo paper are paper publish karo law school journals mein (even at 40) in which you’ll give some arm chair inputs like Government should do this should do that but god forbid you dirty your hands by going on the ground.

Agar itne confident ho toh itne insecure kyun ho dear

UPSC- A centuries old exam pattern where excellence is measured basis one exam where literally the best Mug Master wins. All you need to do is grabble all information by rote learning. Can even take 5 years to do so. If you are reserved class can probably sit till you are 40 years old. The only actual intelligence and aptitude part was CSAT which has unfortunately been made just qualifying and much simpler, so that dumb candidates can continue to revel in this cringefest and boast how they qualified the "most difficult exam". Difficult only because of the number of rats in the race (literally a rat race), otherwise one need not get more than 50% marks most of the time. The amount of downvotes to any comment questioning UPSC is also a testament of the overwhelming amount of population of these robotic rats.

Rhodes- A GLOBAL standard (as against a colonial Indian standard) of checking the overall academic brilliance of students basis his over all career and the entire span of graduation including marks scored as well as extra-curricular activities and other talents. It judges the overall personality and meritocracy of the candidate. He/she has to be among the best candidates in the country and in his/her chosen field of study with an overall life long demonstrated meritocracy (as opposed to one exam) and match with other peers in the world. A true test of education and finesse.

RHODES IS EASILY THE WINNER.

Bhai tere jaise 5 saal drop karne ka plan nahi hota aise comment likhne waalon ka. Dimaag hai unke paas, tujh se zyada paisa kama lenge. Tu ja maa baap ke paison pe 5 saal drop kar. Waise bhi 10 lakh log tayaari kar rahe hain is exam ki jiska success rate 0.1% hai. Tera waise bhi nahi hoga.

I'm kinda surprised at this thread. This idea that because poor people from villages and small towns aspire for UPSC, their aspirations are some how equally prestigious as a rhodes scholarship.. something is wrong there?

I'm the first to admit that it takes an incredible amount of privilege to even dream of getting the rhodes scholarship. I went to law school not knowing what it is, and not even dreaming about applying because it just seemed so unreachable. Years later I wish I had given myself the opportunity to apply and to work toward it. It's a good goal. The worst thing about being poor is not really the lack of material resources- you can get around that. The worst thing is the soft bigotry of low expectations- from others and from ourselves. Even your dreams are poor. The system wins when poor people convince themselves they better not aspire to things like rhodes, that those things are not made for them and therefore aspiring to those things is not desirable, and in fact, people who think that those things are desirable must be bigoted and elitist and snobbish.

Getting the rhodes scholarship undeniably makes your life better and launches your career into a new and better stratosphere. You go from wanting a bank job to turning down offers from McKinsey. Rhodes scholars have undeniably greater impact in society than the thousands of IAS/ IPS/ IRS officers in this country. I couldn't name more than 5 top level IAS officers who have done things that have changed the course of history, I can name many many rhodes scholars who have done that, Girish Karnad, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Sagarika Ghose, Sanjeev Sanyal, Menaka Guruswamy in this country, but in other countries, I mean Bill Clinton, Hubble, Naomi Wolf, Ronan Farrow- American rhodes scholars alone have changed the course of history.

Why do poor students do this? why do we not give ourselves a chance and try and find virtue in a lack of ambition or a lack of traditional success? How is that not self injurious?

For what its worth, many wonderful rhodes scholars come from humble backgrounds. Girish Karnads mom was a poor widow all through his childhood, Sudhirs Krishnaswamys dad was a watchman, Bill Clinton was raised by a single mom on the brink of poverty. Rahul Bajaj went to- what? Nagpur University? And hes blind- and theres an aspirational success story if one wants it- im sure there are others but I wont go on. The point being- we need not constrain ourselves to only what society has deemed is good for us.

I really think we need to stop thinking about identity as destiny and burrowing into that.

No one is saying people from humble backgrounds shouldn't aspire to the Rhodes. This thread denigrates the UPSC which is both a great achievement and equally accessible to everyone willing to work for it. IAS officer are the unsung heroes of big changes. You have whole rights that you would never have without them. Same with IPS. They can't come out and brag about the things they have done to keep us all safe.

Not to undermine any of the Rhodes scholars. Feel free to admire them and aspire to it. The mistake this thread makes is in underestimating the UPSC's capacity to change your life and the power it gives you to change many people's lives.

I'm not really keen on being dragged into an argument that compares apples and oranges. A good IAS officer might have impact- thats not the argument. The argument is that your ability to influence might be greater if you are able to be a montek singh ahluwalia or an atishi marlena rather than an Ashok Khemka. Both have impact- but one was repeatedly transferred- like 40/50 times because he tried to do the right thing- and that significantly affected the power he hand to change lives. There are constraints to an IAS job that a rhodes scholar doesnt necessarily have. Its not denigrating the UPSC to recognise the limitations of the job. One of my friends parents is an IAS officer and despite his own political opinions he has had to carry out the current governments political agenda which involves shutting down free expression and censorship- thats just what the job is.

There absolutely are people in this thread arguing that aspiring to the rhodes is an elitist snobbish bigoted (implied casteist) thing to do and that there is somehow more virtue to be found in being some "unsung hero" that is not there in being famous and still a hero. Growing up poor- i thought there was virtue simply in getting a job and working at it and paying taxes and helping the people around me, my dreams were somewhat small. And I thought that was somehow more virtuous than trying to be India's Bill Clinton- because I resigned myself to the idea that it would be impossible to break into that sphere of influence. But that was an adaptive preference, not a true choice. I was justifying my choices rather than actually being courageous enough to put myself out there and try and go for the gold. It wasnt virtuous- it was a self fulfilling prophecy.

The UPSC is accessible in that more people know what it is and how they could try to get in, but being successful in the exams and in your career still has many access barriers. If your parents cannot afford to support you for years while you do exam prep, if you cannot afford all the prep courses and materials, that is not equally accessible. And even if you struggle against that to get selected- you still might not have a very impactful career because you dont know how to play the political game right or because you might not have adequate protection from the political game because of your social status.

Given the odds, I think a young person in a law school in india today might actually have a better chance at the rhodes if they gave it a shot. Its not so hard to top exams at the university level or to obtain recommendation letters after internships, it might be a little hard to obtain information about the application process but most rhodes scholars are happy to share their knowledge with aspirants. You just need to pull up the courage to email them. When I was in law school, only one person found the courage to apply to rhodes and she got it. She wasnt top of class- but near enough (rank 6/7 if I remember correctly), she applied to internships in the regular way and earned rec letters and she hit the jackpot partly because she worked hard through the five years in law school in a dedicated way. Many of the people who topped then wished they had the courage to apply- they had the grades and the letters, but they settled for a bank job or a firm job or a litigation job because they were afraid to do this thing that seemed unreachable. Many more people didnt bother working hard through law school because they knew they only had to be in the top half to get a day z job and thats all they allowed themselves to want. In truth- i think ten/ fifteen people from my batch had the talent and capability to get rhodes if they had worked hard and been courageous and resourceful. Its shocking that even today, only two three people from each law school batch even entertain the idea of applying to the rhodes. Thats a problem, only if more people apply to the rhodes can the rhodes go to more and more diverse candidates. If you self select out- then obviously the pool of people who get it will not be as diverse. And calling people who value or aspire to the rhodes elitist snobs doesnt actually solve the problem.

Oh and you should read this if you think McKinsey is something to aspire for https://www.thenation.com/article/society/mckinsey-whistleblower-confessions/

Didnt say mck was some virtuous thing- we all know it isnt. I said having the ability and option of turning down a mck job for something better- thats a more powerful thing than working four years at an exam that even if you pass, you dont have as much autonomy as you might think.

Rhodes v UPSC = Cannes Film Festival Awards v Filmfare Awards.

The number of people who follow the Filmfare Awards and watch its nominated movies is probably much higher when compared to Cannes. Salman Khan has far more fans than your average European art film actor. Everyone in India will be able to identify Ekta Kapoor but not the girl who won at Cannes this year. But we all know which of the two awards truly recognises excellence and is truly prestigious.

Absolutely right. There has been a sea change in the profile of NLU students these days. Gone are the days when people from elite schools in big cities would dominate. Nowadays, most students are from small towns in North India, as you say. The elite nowadays either go abroad or to Ashoka and Jindal, with a few opting for NUJS/GNLU NRI quota.

Hence, the comments in LI nowadays reflect this changed demographic.