Without equality, democracy and social justice, which are three interrelated factors, secularism cannot exist as a positive value in society. I HAVE known Prof. Romila Thapar for about 45 years, most of it as a colleague at the Centre for Historical Studies of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Romila, as she is called by almost everybody – from her eight-year-old grandnephew to all of us present here – had helped to...

The University Grants Commission has demanded a four-fold hike in funds allocation in the 12th five-year Plan to create 10 million additional seats in higher educational institutions. The demand has come in spite of the higher education regulator managing to spend only 50 per cent of the Rs 46,449 crore allocated in the 11th Plan three months before the period ends. The UGC has submitted a detailed report to the HRD ministry,...

The use of tracker technology to zero in on the misuse of diagnostic techniques for sex determination has evoked mixed reactions. ONE of the least discussed issues in the context of the data thrown up by Census 2011 is the worrisome decline in the child sex ratio (CSR) and the not-too-perfect implementation of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act, or PCPNDT Act. There is reason to...

-IANS Still nursing the sting of ally Trinamool Congress opposing the Lokpal Bill in the Rajya Sabha citing issues of federal autonomy, the United Progressive Alliance ( UPA) government wants to take the states into confidence on Sonia Gandhi's dream project - the National Food Security Bill, 2011. The bill was tabled in the Lok Sabha during the winter session of parliament last year and will now go to the standing committee...

Not only are the Forest Rights Act and the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas Act routinely violated in Chhattisgarh, the adivasis are also short-changed on legislative representation and reservations in government jobs. As the state cedes land to capital while reducing the adivasis to an ornamental presence, there is increasing assertion of adivasi identity, born out of class predicaments and experiences of displacement as much as notions of indigeneity. Supriya Sharma...