On a personal level, I feel having special compartments is fair provided they are able to provide enough space for men in the general compartments. It does feel bad when the general compartment is chock-o-block full and the other one is fairly empty. About first & last compartments being reserved for ladies is a bad idea for a reason you mentioned before, they tried implementing this over a year ago in chennai, but because of feedback they reversed it back to 2nd & 2nd last compartments for ladies (I think one more in the middle). The first/last coach for ladies change lasted about 2 months I think.- It was a major problem because in some stations the entrance to the platform is at the front or back & the way the train would be standing people need to run 1-2 coaches' distance in any case, this added to 1 more... And often it became a case of more people running & taking more risks to get into the train.. T