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...

The Ambedkar cartoon has been misread. And this could just be the beginning Ever since the Ambedkar cartoon controversy erupted, I have not stopped wondering about the irony of the situation. The attempt, perhaps the first one in the national textbooks, to accord Babasaheb Ambedkar his due place as one of the founders of our republic, was being attacked for insulting him. Professor Suhas Palshikar, who has taught me to read...

Police investigation of Sanal Edamaraku for debunking a “miracle” at a church is a crime against the Constitution. Early in March, little drops of water began to drip from the feet of the statue of Jesus nailed to the cross on the church of Our Lady of Velankanni, down on to Mumbai's unlovely Irla Road. Hundreds began to flock to the church to collect the holy water in little plastic bottles,...

To many Indians, the word “politician” invariably invokes familiar scenes of din and disruption in Parliament, if not the taint of corruption. Yet from time to time, a little-noticed — and perhaps rather quaint — parliamentary tradition tends to suggest that at least some of India’s MPs may have a place in their heart for issues concerning the ordinary citizen. Of the 79 private members’ bills listed today in the Lok Sabha’s...

The speed and determination with which the Tamil Nadu government has been slapping its citizens right, left and centre with colonial-era laws, it would seem as if a full-fledged war of independence is raging in the fishing villages of Idinthakarai and Kudankulam along the coast of Tamil Nadu. According to findings by a team led senior journalist Sam Rajappa, in just four months between September (when the protest movement against the...