For more than a year now, cellular service provider Idea Cellular and television channel CNBC are jointly organising a series of panel discussions which explore the potential of various themes like, "Transforming India", "How to create a thinking organization", etc.

It is a series which sees leading experts from various fields - NGOs, corporates, bureaucrats etc., get together to brainstorm on a particular subject.

The upcoming event revolves around job reservation. The government has recently proposed that job reservations should be imposed in the private sector as well. The Idea-CNBC sponsored event will discuss and debate the issues related to the rationale behind the reservation policy.

The issues will include: Can we ever talk about bringing in equality, if we follow a reservation policy? Will the private sector lose its efficiency and its competitiveness, if it is forced to follow policies like these? Shouldn###SQ###t reservations be based on merit and need rather than caste, religion, community,etc.? Shouldn###SQ###t reservations be restricted to primary level education instead of all the way to the job sphere? Has the social agenda of the govt losing its efficacy?

The pro-reservation panelists will be Meira Kumar, minister for social justice & empowerment, S K Thorat, National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, Shahid Sidiqqui, general secretary & MP, Samajwadi Party.

Speakers against reservation will include Noni Chawla, management consultant; Dipankar Gupta, sociologist with JNU and Pramod Mathur, documentary filmmaker. Amit Mitra, general secretary, FICCI, could also speak against reservation, but his participation is not confirmed.

Idea has said in a release that it the endeavor of CNBC and Idea to make "The Power of an Idea" a stimulating discussion forum where issues and concerns, which are fundamental to the society, get addressed.

The aspiration for this project does not end with mere discussions being aired on the CNBC channel, but converting the deliberations into a white paper which will be available as reference material to any interest group if they so desire.