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...
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Coalgate: Opposition targets govt, Left seeks JPC probe
-The Times of India Opposition parties on Tuesday sought to put the government on the mat over the Coalgate scam front-paged by TOI with Parliament adjourned till noon and Left demanding a joint parliamentary probe on the reported Rs 1.8 lakh crore benefit to private companies. Opposition members stalled question hour in both Houses demanding a discussion on the CAG report. As soon as Rajya Sabha met for the day, Rajiv Pratap...
More »Academics slam Sibal for cartoon ban in textbooks
-The Times of India Over a dozen academics, under the aegis of SAHMAT, issued a statement recently criticizing HRD minister Kapil Sibal's stand to withdraw the NCERT texts that contained the Ambedkar cartoon, saying the issue could not be treated like one of mere executive discretion. Signed by eminent academics, including Romila Thapar, Amitabh Kundu, Zoya Hasan, Gopal Guru, Prabhat Patnaik and M K Raina, the statement said, "Whatever be the merits...
More »Ambedkar textbook toon upsets MPs -JP Yadav and Basant Mohanty
A “derogatory” cartoon on B.R. Ambedkar in a Class XI textbook today created a furore in both Houses of Parliament and forced an apology out of minister Kapil Sibal outside the House. The ruckus, however, aborted an expected Opposition attack on home minister P. Chidambaram over his alleged role in helping his son gain from an Aircel-Maxis deal. Fittingly enough, the issue that spared Chidambaram for the day was raised by the...
More »Media Follies and Supreme Infallibility by Sukumar Muralidharan
The Supreme Court has taken steps to lay down a code for media reporting. This attempt at prior restraint on the media is a dangerous move with precedent from authoritarian polities. In a context where the judiciary has been lax in defending the media from attacks which seek to curb its freedom, such unilateral moves will not remedy bad reporting but rather make conditions worse for the media to play...
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