-GovernanceNow.com As farmers protests take centre stage across the country, Swaraj Party convenor explains the ecological, economic and existential crisis behind this unrest. * We have recently seen farmers from Tamil Nadu protesting in the national capital. Then Maharashtra farmers protested, deciding not to send their produce to cities. The agitation has now reached Madhya Pradesh, leading to killings. Why there is sudden farmers’ unrest in the country? I think we...

-The Indian Express More than half of all Class XII students in the country who scored (exactly) 95 per cent in English (Core) this year are from private schools in the Delhi region, an analysis of the results by an engineer based in New York has found. While the jury is still out on whether the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) abandoned the practice of grade inflation this year, one number...

-The Hindu Liberalisation has eroded the institutional capacity to train young people who might pursue liberal values The other day, a student asked me what exactly the word ‘liberal’ mean. She wanted to know whether ‘liberalisation’ promotes ‘liberal’ values. She had noticed that institutions of higher education, which are supposed to promote liberal values, were finding it difficult to resist ideological and commercial pressures triggered by the process of economic liberalisation. So,...

-Frontline.in The British government, on the basis of an 1891 report on the subhuman living conditions of “Pariahs” by James H.A. Tremenheere, Acting Collector of Chengleput, assigned 12 lakh acres of land for distribution to the “depressed classes” of the Madras Presidency to empower them socially and economically. But more than 100 years later, much of this land is in the possession of non-Dalits, and the struggle to reclaim them has...

-The Indian Express The rights-based approach departs from the ‘assurance-based approach’ of the new National Health Policy, which essentially perpetuates the status quo, explains The Indian Express. Since the time the Mental Health Bill was introduced in Rajya Sabha in 2013, decriminalisation of suicide has been its calling card. However, the legislation travels beyond just that colonial era relic, assuming a rights-based approach to mental healthcare, and creating circumstances for removal of...