-The Economic Times Babasaheb Ambedkar is one of the most fascinating figures in Indian politics. In hagiographic terms, if Gandhi is the father of the nation, Ambedkar is father of the Indian Constitution. Both have a legendary status which inspires hagiolatry. Any critique of them is seen as iconoclastic. Gandhians tend to put Gandhi in moth balls in their Ashrams. Dalits similarly tend to freeze Ambedkar, disallowing the slightest controversy. Strangely Hindu...

There is a complicated relationship between abortion as such and the selective abortion of female foetuses. This dilemma is one with which the women’s movement in India has been grappling since the late 1980s. In my discussion of this dilemma, I would like to move away completely from Satyamev Jayate, the television programme, (on which a discussion has been initiated by Shohini Ghosh on kafila.org). In any case, there the...

There has been a six-fold increase in the number of antibiotics being popped by Indians. This includes the retail sale of Carbapenems -- powerful class IV antibiotics, typically used as a "last resort" to treat serious infections caused by multi-drug resistant, gram-negative pathogens. Research by the Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy, Washington DC, has found that retail sale of carbapenems increased six times -- from 0.21 units per million...

-CNN-IBN Cartoons are not a laughing matter for politicians after a 63-year-old cartoon of DR BR Ambedkar led to uproarious scenes in Parliament, forcing the Union Government to apologise. Finance Minister Pranab Mukerjee assured Parliament on Monday that no political cartoons would be allowed in school textbooks and all objectionable material would be withdrawn after there was a ruckus over a cartoon of BR Ambedkar in NCERT class XI social science...

MPs join hands to attack ‘derogatory’ cartoon on Ambedkar Two eminent scholars have resigned their positions as advisers to the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) after a furore in Parliament led Human Resource Development Minister KaPIL Sibal to withdraw a book on the Constitution because it contained a cartoon some legislators said was offensive. Yogendra Yadav and Suhas Palshikar, both eminent political scientists, resigned hours after the cartoon provoked...