-The Indian Express Having faced criticism over objectionable content in school textbooks, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has ruled that all 14,000 institutions affiliated to it must stick to NCERT and CBSE textbooks. All schools will also have to set up websites declaring relevant information, including details pertaining to textbooks being used. Making these conditions for affiliation, the board recently amended its affiliation bylaws to ensure that only properly...

-The Indian Express Allegations of saffronisation of school textbooks in BJP-ruled Karnataka have reached the Centre with demands for a thorough probe into “academically poor and saffronised textbooks with many a distortion and misrepresentation”. The Committee for Resisting Saffronisation of Education has submitted a memorandum to the NCERT as well as to Human Resource Development Minister Pallam Raju alleging that the new textbooks released for class V and VIII by the Karnataka...

-The Telegraph A one-member committee formed to fix responsibility on individuals for “derogatory” political cartoons in some NCERT school textbooks has refused to blame anyone, highly placed sources have told The Telegraph. The committee, set up by the human resource development ministry under its former secretary B.S. Baswan, has found that officials and experts had followed set guidelines and procedure in preparing these books and had no “ill intentions”. “It said the books...

-The Hindu Shahi Imam of Fatehpuri mosque demands withdrawal of textbooks Even as the controversy over political cartoons in school textbooks is yet to subside, the Muslim community here has objected to two illustrations and the text of a chapter in the Class XI history book published by the National Council of Educational Research and Training under the National Curriculum Framework-2007. Shahi Imam of the Fatehpuri mosque Mohammad Mukarram Ahmed has written to...

-The Indian Express In contrast to the Thorat committee report which had recommended removal of over 20 cartoons from NCERT textbooks, the NCERT’s textbook development committee and national monitoring committee have listed only three-four cartoons for removal. However, the cartoon that is reported to have offended UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi is not in the list, leaving the Kapil Sibal-led HRD ministry in a spot. Highly placed sources said the ministry has asked...