-The Hindu The political scientist on the danger to India’s checks and balances, and the perils of the democratisation of mediocrity in universities Professor of political science and a holder of the Madan Lal Sobti Chair, Devesh Kapur has been director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary India at University of Pennsylvania since 2006. Mr. Kapur, who recently co-edited Public Institutions in India: Performance and Design, says our public universities...

-Deccan Herald Clarifies that publishing and displaying Aadhaar in public is prohibited The Centre has asked the universities not to make public Aadhaar number of PhD scholars, withdrawing the University Grants Commission's (UGC) instruction which required all of the varsities to upload the data of their students along with their unique identification numbers on their websites since last year. “It is informed that the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits...

-Frontline.in The British government, on the basis of an 1891 report on the subhuman living conditions of “Pariahs” by James H.A. Tremenheere, Acting Collector of Chengleput, assigned 12 lakh acres of land for distribution to the “depressed classes” of the Madras Presidency to empower them socially and economically. But more than 100 years later, much of this land is in the possession of non-Dalits, and the struggle to reclaim them has...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The government has decided to stop funding research centres on social discrimination at several universities, prompting accusations of shielding the "Brahminical social order". "It's ironic that these centres, which research Dalits, B.R. Ambedkar's philosophy, social exclusion and inclusive policies like reservation, are being closed down when the University Grants Commission (the higher education regulator) is funding courses on Vedic studies," said N. Sukumar, Ambedkar scholar and teacher of...

-Caravan Magazine Since the Aadhaar programme, which aims to provide Indian citizens with unique identification numbers, was launched in 2009, several petitions have been filed before the Supreme Court that oppose its application by the government. These petitions have challenged the Aadhaar programme on various grounds: the government’s right to ask the citizens to provide biometric data for Aadhaar verification without adequate safeguards against its potential misuse; the legality of the...