-The Indian Express A team of physicists from IIT-Delhi is conducting a five-day workshop to teach the subject to madrasa instructors in Taleemabad, near Jamia Hamdard. Speaking to a class of 30 madrasa instructors-turned-students, Vipin Tripathi, Dr Sanat Mohanty and Dr Pawan Kumar began their workshop by talking about bridges. The earnest maulanas, from Delhi and Faridabad, participate enthusiastically, as they are asked to figure out why a corrugated sheet makes...

-Frontline The Central government's proposal to hand over the supply of supplementary nutrition to NGOs in the name of "community participation" is surely an invitation for private profiteering on the back of this supposedly public scheme. ENSURING safe and healthy conditions for the reproduction of the population is obviously the most fundamental requirement of any society. So the progress of a society can be determined (and indeed is routinely judged) by the...

-The Indian Express Institutionalising a mandatory process of consultation and dialogue would democratise not just law-making, but the state itself The formal institutions of India's parliamentary democracy have provided little space for citizens' participation in the making of laws. This has not, however, prevented citizens and citizens' groups from making significant attempts to watch, critique and contribute to the process. In fact, in recent years, it is clear that the lack of...

-The Hindu The pressing need to end the misuse of Section 66 A of the Information Technology Act has once again been underscored by the arrest of Jaya Vindhyala, president of the People's Union for Civil Liberties in Andhra Pradesh. Her alleged offence of putting up posts critical of a legislator, Amanchi Krishna Mohan, and Tamil Nadu Governor K. Rosaiah on Facebook has resulted in heavy-handed police action. Clearly, the Supreme...

-The Hindu   In making a case for the investigative agency's autonomy, the Supreme Court is only stepping in where the executive has failed The proceedings in the Coalgate case earlier this week saw the Supreme Court asking the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) many uncomfortable questions. The Court also asked the government to tell it what steps it was going to take to enact a law to ensure the CBI's autonomy. The...