India Inc. doesn’t want a job quota forced down its throat. So the government has come up with an alternative and a bit of wordplay — “positive discrimination” — with tax exemptions and other benefits as carrots...An official said the Centre was thinking of an incentive-linked scheme to ensure better placements for Dalits in the private sector, a plan similar to benefits it has proposed for corporate houses that employ religious minorities on a large enough scale...Implicit in the words positive discrimination was the hope private firms would find the proposal more palatable than a job quota which industry rejected outright saying it would scuttle “meritocracy”...Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had to intervene by saying affirmative action shouldn’t be “pushed down anybody’s throat”, though he reminded corporate houses of their social responsibilities. [refers to Tata]