Books, cartoons and judgments are being discussed thoroughly from highest bodies of liberal democracy like Parliament to constituents of public sphere i.e. print to media artefacts. Primarily, there are two standpoints regarding inclusion/exclusion of cartoons in NCERT Books (political science). Inclusionary argument is based on idea of deliverance of great service to B.R.Ambedkar while emphasising his teachings, ideas and place in the book. Exclusionary argument is based on cartoon itself...

Parliament is now a body of fragile selves. They won’t draw a sword for liberty Is the controversy over the Ambedkar cartoon in the NCERT textbook a sign of a deeper intellectual and cultural malaise? The plot line is eerily familiar. One set of politicians raises, in this case falsely, the apprehension that a cartoon is offensive. There is a high-pitched debate. Members of an offended community accuse others of insensitivity...

-The Business Standard India's politicians' regrettable response to a 1949 cartoon On Friday, more clearly than ever before, India’s political class revealed its deepest, darkest fear: that someone, somewhere, is smiling. In an enviable feat of cross-party unanimity in this partisan and divided age, India’s parliamentarians decided that a cartoon by that unparalleled chronicler of the birth of independent India, Shankar, was too offensive for a government-sanctioned textbook on modern Indian...

The Jaipur Literary Festival, a giddily chaotic celebration of the written word set on the grounds of a Rajasthan palace, ended in misery and embarrassment today, with the organizers bowing to pressure from local security forces and scotching plans for Salman Rushdie to “appear” at the festival, finally, by video link. Rushdie had already been forced to cancel plans to come to Jaipur after he had received intelligence reports—bogus intelligence,...

Till recently, I did not know of a single movie, let alone documentary, which could persuade a viewer to sit under the open sky on an unusually wintry night for over three hours. On Monday night, I was in an audience of about 200 for one such documentary, Jai Bheem Comrade, by activist-filmmaker Anand Patwardhan. It was with much curiosity and anticipation that I went for the first Indian public screening...