Arjun Singh
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Arjun Singh (born November 5, 1930, Madhya Pradesh) is a veteran Congress (I) politician. He is the Human Resources and Development (HRD) minister in the current Indian government headed by Manmohan Singh. He held the same post in the Narasimha Rao government also. He has served as a minister in the Rajiv Gandhi government, and has held the post of Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and Governor of Punjab. He was conferred the Outstanding Parliamentarian Award for the year 2000.
Controversies
He courted a lot of controversy in 2005 by drafting and getting the 104th amendment to the constitution passed in the Parliament. According to this amendment all private unaided educational institutes would have to reserve seats for the designated backward castes. In early 2006, he also sought to increase the reservation for backward categories in the internationally reputed Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management from 22.5% to 49.5%. The National Knowledge Commission, a body of academicians and intellectuals who report directly to the Prime Minister on matters of educational policy, strongly opposed his moves.[1]sv:Arjun Singh