-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 Soaring vegetable prices pushed inflation higher in April, while fuel and manufactured product prices sustained their pressure posing a fresh policy challenge and announcing the return of price pressures in Asia's third-largest economy. Data released by the commerce & industry ministry on Monday showed the annual rate of inflation, based on monthly wholesale price index, stood at 7.23% for April, 2012, compared to 6.89% for the previous month and...

As cartoons, like all other images, are constantly subject to fresh interpretation, there is a need to set boundaries within which dissent must be tolerated; or else we run the risk of damaging the task of knowledge building Like many books, works of art, and articles that have been summarily withdrawn from public circulation, for different political reasons, and due to public pressure, the controversial 1949 cartoon by Shankar has been...

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...

The Ambedkar cartoon has been misread. And this could just be the beginning Ever since the Ambedkar cartoon controversy erupted, I have not stopped wondering about the irony of the situation. The attempt, perhaps the first one in the national textbooks, to accord Babasaheb Ambedkar his due place as one of the founders of our republic, was being attacked for insulting him. Professor Suhas Palshikar, who has taught me to read...