-The Indian Express Poor quality government schools make higher education out of reach for non-elite . That’s the real problem, not public-funded universities. In his article, ‘Let the elite pay’ (IE, June 23), Surjit Bhalla argues for the continuation of the highly discriminatory school and higher education systems that already provide education to most on the basis of ability to pay. He acknowledges that “children of the poorest of the poor”do not...

-Hindustan Times Citizens are finding innovative ways to protest and are often doing so without the help of political parties, who often arrive ‘late to the party’. Though the recent violence in Shillong began over a minor scuffle and spread through a fabricated story on WhatsApp, it took almost a week to de-escalate tensions between members of the Sikh community, long-time settlers in the Punjabi Lane area of the city, and Khasis,...

-Hindustan Times Rather than feeling ignored by the mainstream media or disgruntled by the ‘biased’ coverage, Dalits are using digital space to publish news and opinions. On December 31, when violence spread in Pune on the 200th anniversary of the Bhima- Koregaon battle, it was the first time many people in other parts of the country got to know about the encounter between the army of Peshwa Bajirao II, and a...

-Press Note by Foundation for Media Professionals (FMP), dated 28 May, 2018 Mr Narendra Modi is perhaps the first Prime Minister of India to have not held a single press conference, four years at a stretch. This could not however have been unrelated to a series of events that raise fresh concerns about media freedom. The concerted online hate campaign against journalist Ms Rana Ayyub, and the circulation of a fake pornographic...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: After its plan to penalise journalists identified as purveyors of fake news was nixed by the PMO, the I&B ministry has now decided to set up a social media communication hub and deploy executives to monitor online content across each of India’s 716 districts. The monitoring mechanism, once in place, will be able to read, contextualise and respond to content in most Indian and foreign languages...