Justice Markandey Katju's prescription for a regulated media regime is a misplaced step that can actually de-democratise the fourth estate. IT is open season on the political class and the news media. But then, again, it's more like a chase of one's own tail. A self-righteous, delusional, Anna-Baba NGO-ised fringe sets out to stigmatise politics and Members of Parliament; the news media salivate at the prospect and rush to provide...

We created a textbook that would encourage young citizens to think seriously about politics. But our politicians are not ready for that yet When an emotional issue erupts in the public domain, argument becomes difficult and secondary to decision-making. That is what happened over the controversy regarding the inclusion of a cartoon depicting Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in a class XI textbook. One self-proclaimed inheritor and interpreter of Dr. Ambedkar's legacy ensured...

Jatav residents of Ramgarh in U.P. resist attempts by members of a powerful community to grab their land by violent means. IN what could be considered one of the worst incidents of vendetta against Dalits in the National Capital Region (NCR), members of the Dalit Jatav community were beaten up brutally by some members of the dominant Gujjar community in Ramgarh village in the Greater Noida area of Uttar Pradesh...

For the first time, the Centre has urged the governor to use his special powers in Scheduled Areas to cancel bauxite mining leases given in Andhra Pradesh's Vishakhapatnam district. Linking the issue of bauxite mining to the growing Maoist violence on the Andhra-Odisha border, the Centre has asked Andhra Pradesh governor ESL Narsimhan to use special powers, bestowed to governors in Scheduled Areas under the Constitution, to cancel the leases. The Centre...

As the government scrambles to contain the political damage from the Ambedkar cartoon, one may be tempted to believe that somebody surreptitiously slipped Shankar's satirical work in the NCERT textbook. Or that the HRD ministry was caught unawares by the political heresy.  However, the fact is that the books were released by NCERT after having been thoroughly vetted by a National Monitoring Committee appointed by the ministry which includes several civil...