-The Hindu Literacy has helped people in the State maximise the benefits of the rural employment guarantee scheme Kerala’s achievements have long been celebrated by development economists — high literacy rates, including among girls, low infant mortality rates and so on. There has also been a spate of writings highlighting the ills of Kerala society. Critics have pointed to the high rates of suicides and feminists have also raised difficult questions. While...

-The Hindu The debate over the cartoons used in NCERT textbooks as aids to learning have thrown up a range of issues. The discussion has crystallised around a set of oppositions: motivated political correctness of our elected representatives vs. the necessity of preemptory parliamentary intervention on educational material appropriate for schools; institutional autonomy vs. political responsibility of a state presiding over a diverse and fraught society; the hubris of ‘experts’ vs....

The cartoon controversy provides the possibility of interrogating the functioning of the academic system to understand its relationship with the downtrodden masses. A new deliberation is needed in order to make the academic world more sensitive and responsive towards the issues and concerns of the subaltern-oppressed communities. This will be an ethical incentive for the present-day dalit movement in India and can bring greater democratisation to the education system. Harish Wankhede...

In August 2010, the U.N. Secretary General set up a “High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability,” to formulate a “new vision for sustainable growth and prosperity” for the world. Co-chaired by the Presidents of Finland and South Africa, the panel submitted its detailed report in January 2012. The report is under consideration in the Secretary General's office, and will be a key input to the upcoming U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development...

School texts that teach young minds that politics is a contentious and critical but reasonable activity, that it is not merely a set of demands and commands, and that politicians have to be responsive and accountable are naturally disliked by the political class. This is the tone of all the Political Science textbooks of Standards IX-XI brought out after 2006. The nurturing of a culture of critical public opinion seems...