My reading of Prabhat Patnaik's essay (“Parliament's say extends to the classroom,” The Hindu, May 22, 2012), on the recent controversy regarding the removal of a cartoon from a textbook, is somewhat different from Neeladri Bhattacharya's (“A disquieting polemic against academic autonomy,” May 29, 2012). If I understand that essay's argument, it had two points to make. The first is less important than the second, but it is nevertheless not...

-IANS It's hard to imagine that a small room in a dingy lane is the training ground for young talent from nearby slums who are on their way to becoming B-Boys (Break Boys) who perform the Breaking or B-boying street dance genre. As one enters the room in the Khirki urban village in South Delhi after climbing steep and dark stairs, one is greeted by sounds of laughing, screaming and hooting. The...

Of late, a childhood friend's 80-year-old mother has taken to writing. Emboldened by her single-mindedness, memories dulled by a lifetime of contingencies now respond readily to the daily rustle of pen on paper. One memory stands out in Surjit Kaur's mind. In 1957, as a fresh eyed schoolteacher from Delhi she went on an educational tour to Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. It was 10 years after Independence...

The textbook controversy is an opportunity for us to explore some of our core constitutional principles, especially the relationship between Parliament and freedom of expression. Parliament is certainly the space to discuss complaints of “offensive material” but should exercise its option of withdrawal of the textbooks in the “last instance” not in the “first instance” as has been done in this case. Peter Ronald deSouza (peter@csds.in) is the director of the...

School texts that teach young minds that politics is a contentious and critical but reasonable activity, that it is not merely a set of demands and commands, and that politicians have to be responsive and accountable are naturally disliked by the political class. This is the tone of all the Political Science textbooks of Standards IX-XI brought out after 2006. The nurturing of a Culture of critical public opinion seems...