A government panel has recommended that domestic Violence should not be treated only as a matter of crime but also as a health issue and medical students should be sensitised to deal with it. The panel has suggested that the medical curriculum be tweaked to include ways in which doctors can address the problem of domestic Violence if they suspect a woman patient is facing it at home. “We realised that the...

Row over cartoon demeans the Dalit movement in general and Ambedkar in particular The intellectual-rational capacity of the current brand of Congress leadership has always been in doubt. In the latest episode of fast-track community appeasement by banning a controversial Nehru-Ambedkar cartoon in an NCERT textbook, the ruling elites of our country hit a new low in their political opportunism. Kapil Sibal is, in general, not a popular figure among Dalits,...

The row over a cartoon featuring Dalit leader Ambedkar shows a lack of critical thinking in the Indian polity. The cartoon by Shankar Pillai that caused such pandemonium in the Indian Parliament on 11 May 2012 when various Dalit and non-Dalit members demanded its omission from a Class IX textbook was originally published in 1949. It depicts Dalit leader Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar with a whip riding a snail entitled ‘Constitution’...

-The Hindustan Times The parliamentary standing committee on rural development is slated to submit on Thursday its report on the much-awaited land acquisition bill — with suggestions for tough norms that would make it very difficult to acquire land for industry. The committee, it is understood, has suggested that ‘public purpose’ be clearly defined to prevent profit-making industries from taking advantage of the law under the guise of producing public goods...

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...