Arjun wrote: No intention to exclude anyone from the debate. Just that someone who's been through the system would understand the drivers that compel talent across India to aim for the JEE.
Sounds reasonable, but a bit cryptic. It is safe to say that a huge majority of students (i.e. all who want to do engg.) would have gone through the JEE experience. A few get through, most do not. It is not clear whether you meant that only those who got through JEE would 'understand the drivers'.
I dont really have a prescription for what is a good method for selection. The matter is complicated. I freely admit that I do not read Kapil Sibal's pronouncements/plans. Chances are, I wont agree with them. As for the JEE, I do like one thing about it....that it is one common exam, for all of India. It simplifies things for students all over India and sets one standard for all. It was to my benefit.....in my 10th, a lot of my classmates went from CBSE to State Board where you were guaranteed 90+% in XIIth class if you had half a brain; and 95%+ if you were reasonably good. I stayed back in CBSE only because of entrance exams that did *not* take the Board marks into account.
My problem with the way things developed is that the JEE has become a litmus test for all students in India who do engg. Now, it is probably correct to say that this is no one person's fault.....newspapers, magazines publish the names of their students (and give them cash awards) because they made it. Perhaps it is the way our Indian society is.....you write a tough exam, you ace it and you are therefore a star worthy of worship and national adulation. There is a tiny bit of a servant mentality in this whole situation......the group that administers the exam (IIT/IAS/any GOI entity) holds all the cards. I really wonder when and how in India's history did this mentality take hold. Was there any similar educational structure in India's 3500 year history? Poster 'shiv' once suggested that this may have arisen out of the British colonial rule where they wanted smart Indians as subordinates to execute tasks in systems they had set up to govern India (railways, tax collection, district administration, law and order etc). And at that time, anyone who wanted to earn a good living had to study hard for these exams and get through, and if they did, their life was all set in their sarkari naukari. How is all this relevant to the topic at hand? Passing the JEE physics, math and chemistry exams give you a leg up on the analytical skills for those subjects. But is that the end goal of this whole
jhamela? Why study engineering? As a first step, let's start with an assumption (albeit naive) that the goal is to actually get an education. What are you going to do with it? Presumably, one would get an engineering degree and do something worthwhile with it...like build a nice bridge (Bandra-Worli), an indigineous plane, rocket launch vehicles, new methods to build sub-surface infrastructure (right now we need machines and workers from China to dig tunnels in Chennai)! Now, none of these things are celebrated in the desi society as much as getting a rank in JEE (there are a few exceptions with PSLV etc). I would argue that the former are more real accomplishments. The desi society's view is very thoroughly screwed up in this regard, and it is to its detriment. The scope of the problem is much more than a few hundred thousand students taking one exam and not getting a rank. It is becoming an issue relating to national public health.
The other part that puzzles me is that this desire to maintain an exclusivity of the brand name is driven by the very people who have these highly-developed, world-class skills and competencies. If one truly has world-class skills, is that alone not enough. One wonders about the need to resort to other methods to keep a mystique in place. One could argue that this is human nature and it cuts across all categories, elite or otherwise, but if one has to do it, atleast do it on personal dime.
We have these discussions on BRF about once every 1.5 years. The previous time it happened, poster Stan_Savljevic went into a lot of detail on what might be an alternative scheme to induct 'good' students into IITs. His posts might still be around and searchable. He was bemoaning the 'democratization of IITs' (not quite sure what he meant by this, but I think he was referring to the crop of students who enroll in Kota-like coaching centers, go Spartan for 3 years, ace JEE and get in. They were not up to snuff, per his findings). I think he said that ultimately something like a personal interview had to be a part of the process to guarantee intake of quality students since Kota had cracked the system. However, given the number of students who need to be screened out, this looked like a non-starter. He had worked out some numbers in his post, if anyone is interested. Ultimately, it all comes down to high demand and low supply.
all these are things that have NOTHING to do with science or thinking. 
that's a frightening scenario.
