-The Times of India With an expert panel rejecting the SK Thorat committee's recommendations for large scale deletion of cartoons of politicians from school Textbooks, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is likely to do away with only two illustrations from political science texts for classes IX to XII. A formal response to the Thorat report is being prepared, but NCERT is expected to delete two cartoons - one...

-The Telegraph A panel that approved NCERT Textbooks in 2006 has expressed “dissatisfaction” at a review committee report suggesting 21 controversial cartoons should be deleted. The national monitoring committee (NMC), co-chaired by academics such as Mrinal Miri and G.P. Deshpande, had approved all new school Textbooks in 2006. But a few cartoons in some political science Textbooks had drawn criticism from politicians. The NCERT had then set up a committee under the Indian...

-The Hindu The debate over the cartoons used in NCERT Textbooks as aids to learning have thrown up a range of issues. The discussion has crystallised around a set of oppositions: motivated political correctness of our elected representatives vs. the necessity of preemptory parliamentary intervention on educational material appropriate for schools; institutional autonomy vs. political responsibility of a state presiding over a diverse and fraught society; the hubris of ‘experts’ vs....

To replace ‘Dalit’ with ‘SC’, as the Thorat panel recommends, is to be inaccurate A commission led by S.K. Thorat, and charged with reviewing NCERT political science Textbooks in the wake of the cartoon controversy, has singled out a specific word in the text for removal. All instances of the word “Dalit”, it is recommended, should be replaced with “Scheduled Caste” (SC). The blogosphere is rife with speculation on the motivation...

-The Deccan Herald School children may now get exposure to the basics of the Right to Information Act with the National Council for Educational Research Training (NCERT) examining a suggestion for inclusion of the landmark law in the school curriculum. The suggestion has been made by the Department of Personnel and Training which is a nodal agency for the matters relating to implementation of the RTI Act.“We are discussing it. The basics...