-The Hindu The petition against the Ambedkar-Nehru cartoon, published in The Hindu (“Humour is by no means exempt from prejudice”, June 8, 2012), makes for sad reading. Sad, because it bears the signatures of some of our best scholars, universally admired for their rigorous scholarship, who nevertheless chose to sign a petition short on facts. The petition asks the NCERT's Textbooks Review Committee to “reconsider the Ambedkar cartoon (and possibly other such...

India has decided to throw its weight behind the civil society on issues related to family planning, and articulate its rights-based approach at a summit scheduled in London in the next few weeks. India has kept away from planning family policies since the 70s, and incorporated population stabilisation programmes in the health policies focussing on sexual and reproductive health rights and women's empowerment. While the Centre has discouraged a targeted approach...

There are major issues at stake in the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development to be held on 20-22 June. Yet governments of developing countries have not given adequate importance to the run-up to the conference. As has happened in the climate change negotiations, the outcome draft now under negotiation shows a concerted move to rewrite the terms of global environmental governance. There is an attempt to push through the decidedly...

-The Economic Times The austerity measures announced by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee are likely to help the government save between Rs 800 crore and Rs 1,000 crore, said a senior finance ministry official. The government has decided to cut down on foreign travels of ministers and official delegations and has put a ban on creation of plan and non-plan posts The figure is based on preliminary estimates.  In addition, the 10% cut...

Call it a strategy to garner political support for passing pending key education Bills or a progressive measure to reduce caste bias in colleges and universities—the central government has put in place a set of rules that can possibly stop grants or cancel recognition of higher educational institutes engaging in such discrimination. The new rules set out by the University Grants Commission (UGC) aim to provide safeguards to students of reserved...