In August 2010, the U.N. Secretary General set up a “High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability,” to formulate a “new vision for sustainable growth and prosperity” for the world. Co-chaired by the Presidents of Finland and South Africa, the panel submitted its detailed report in January 2012. The report is under consideration in the Secretary General's office, and will be a key input to the upcoming U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development...

Political parties across the spectrum get into a tangle over an innocuous cartoon in a school textbook THE textbooks of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) are in the news again. This time, it is not history but political science textbooks that managed to get almost all Members of Parliament on their feet on an emotive issue and for reasons that defied logic. One day before the 60th...

India has achieved a major victory at the just concluded 65th World Health Assembly as it managed to push through a resolution on mental health, asking member-states to acknowledge the need for a comprehensive, coordinated response to addressing mental disorders from health and social sectors at the country level. The delegates recognised these measures which include programmes to reduce stigma and discrimination, reintegration of patients into workplace and society, support...

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...

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...