-The Times of India Government on Monday appeared to be considering putting an end to the innovative use of cartoons to make school textbooks more appealing to students. Although a committee set up by the government to look into the use of cartoons is to submit its report on June 15, UPA appeared set to end the experiment altogether. "We believe textbooks are not the place where these issues (cartoons) should be...

-The Economic Times Babasaheb Ambedkar is one of the most fascinating figures in Indian politics. In hagiographic terms, if Gandhi is the father of the nation, Ambedkar is father of the Indian Constitution. Both have a legendary status which inspires hagiolatry. Any critique of them is seen as iconoclastic. Gandhians tend to put Gandhi in moth balls in their Ashrams. Dalits similarly tend to freeze Ambedkar, disallowing the slightest controversy. Strangely Hindu...

-The Economic Times School textbooks will not feature any 'offensive' political cartoon, the government assured on Monday, days after a 1949 cartoon of Dalit icon Ambedkar in a political science text rocked Parliament. The government has ordered an inquiry to identify NCERT officials responsible for inclusion of the Ambedkar cartoon in the textbook, HRD minister Kapil Sibal said in the Lok Sabha. "I found that a number of cartoons were inappropriate...a review...

-IANS Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal Monday said that freedom of expression is "contextual". His statement came even as members in the Lok Sabha once again united in criticising cartoons in NCERT textbooks, stating that these allegedly denigrated political leaders, especially the ones on B.R. Ambedkar. Sibal promised the Lok Sabha that all objectionable material would be removed and the role of advisors of NCERT (National Council for Educational Research and...

An illustration in a textbook must expand or add to the lesson; Shankar's cartoon of Ambedkar does neither The controversy kicked up over the withdrawal of a textbook for high school over a cartoon after a ruckus in Parliament has been superficially interpreted and uniformly criticised without understanding the sensitivities of the oppressed for whom B.R. Ambedkar is a hero. The anger of Dalits is being interpreted as intolerance while in...