At last, the real anxieties lurking behind what has come to be called the “Ambedkar cartoon” controversy are out in the open. It is hideously clear by now that MPs “uniting across parties” are acting as one only to protect themselves from public scrutiny, debate and criticism. It turns out, as some of us suspected all along, that the “sentiments” that have been “hurt” this time are the easily bruised...

As the government scrambles to contain the political damage from the Ambedkar cartoon, one may be tempted to believe that somebody surreptitiously slipped Shankar's satirical work in the NCERT textbook. Or that the HRD ministry was caught unawares by the political heresy.  However, the fact is that the books were released by NCERT after having been thoroughly vetted by a National Monitoring Committee appointed by the ministry which includes several civil...

Recently, the Indian Council of Social Science Research, the highest body that funds and guides the social sciences in India, has initiated an in-house debate about the current state and the future prospects of such research. What is the quality of work that has come out of our universities and research institutes over the past 10-20 years? Which new areas of inquiry deserve more time, money and attention in the...

-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 Financial Express Lots of work ahead to make RTE work The reasons behind the poor performance of schools students in India are slowly being whittled down from a whole range of reasons (low attendance, high drop-out rate, lack of Teachers, lack of adequate number of schools, etc) to just a few key areas that need a lot of work. The most pressing need seems to be the paucity of trained and...