The cartoon controversy provides the possibility of interrogating the functioning of the academic system to understand its relationship with the downtrodden masses. A new deliberation is needed in order to make the academic world more sensitive and responsive towards the issues and concerns of the subaltern-oppressed communities. This will be an ethical incentive for the present-day dalit movement in India and can bring greater democratisation to the education system. Harish Wankhede...

Friday's murder of Brahmeshwar Singh, chief of the outlawed Ranvir Sena (a private army owing allegiance to the powerful upper caste Bhumihars) in Bhojpur, 71 km from Patna, could become a major test for the seven-year-old Nitish Kumar government's continued ability to maintain social harmony in Bihar. Within hours of the killing in the early hours, Singh's supporters went on the rampage, upsetting the delicate caste equilibrium in south Bihar,...

With the Central government unsure of getting the Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill, 2010, through the Rajya Sabha, the Human Resource Development Ministry is now trying to allow “backdoor” entry to foreign institutions. The Ministry has asked the University Grants Commission (UGC) to identify possibilities within the existing laws of regulating and allowing the foreign educational institutions. The two possible ways of going about it are allowing these...

Maintaining his pro-Adivasi approach, Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Monday said the time had come to make changes in the country's economic policy keeping the interests of the Adivasi population in view. “Though the country has achieved enough economic progress, the benefit of our economic policy has not reached the Adivasi people so far. The injustice done to the Adivasis needs to be corrected with concern and care,” Mr....

Why has there been such a silence from dalit leaders over the Bathani Tola judgment acquitting all those accused of killing 21 dalits? At the same time, what explains their loud protests over the Ambedkar cartoons in the textbooks? Has the elevation of Ambedkar as an icon relegated the dalit leadership to a politics of empty symbolism? Is the issue of a lack of accountability in the judicial system towards...