An illustration in a textbook must expand or add to the lesson; Shankar's cartoon of Ambedkar does neither The controversy kicked up over the withdrawal of a textbook for high school over a cartoon after a ruckus in Parliament has been superficially interpreted and uniformly criticised without understanding the sensitivities of the oppressed for whom B.R. Ambedkar is a hero. The anger of Dalits is being interpreted as intolerance while in...

With an eye to mainstreaming sustainability, rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has reached out to the United Nations Development Programme to suggest ways for 'greening' rural development schemes and programmes. "We are spending Rs 99,000 crore this year on rural development programmes and it would be a shame if we don't mainstream green objectives in these programmes. Rural development programmes offer a huge opportunity to deal with green concerns and challenges...

On February 9, 2010, the then Minister of Environment and Forests, Government of India, Jairam Ramesh, imposed an indefinite moratorium on the introduction of Bt Brinjal in India. It is necessary and desirable to quote the order verbatim. It reads as follows: It is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary based approach and impose a moratorium on the release of Bt Brinjals till such time independent scientific studies establish, to...

Just in case our friends in the media were looking for more Evidence, a new ILO report clinches the connection between old age pension and a country’s well being. The ILO report “World Social Security Report 2010/11: Providing coverage in times of crisis and beyond” puts India’s social security coverage in perspective of its peers. (the report can be accessed at http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_146566.pdf.  India is not only nearly at the bottom...

A Delhi court has ordered a first information report (FIR) and criminal investigations into allegations that the agriculture ministry had allegedly paid trumped-up bills worth nearly Rs. 14 lakh as legal fees to its standing counsel. The court said there was Evidence to suggest a nexus between the counsel and ministry officials to cause loss to “public exchequer” through “fraud” and “misappropriation of funds”. The complaint, moved by the All India Federation...