Men from subaltern communities must confront the violence that tears apart some of their homes and families The two books under review are quite dissimilar in what they set out to do. Dalit Women Speak Out comprises a detailed review of a set of related studies carried out in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh on the violence endured by Dalit women. It revisits the notion of ‘atrocity' both...
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A lesson in rural schooling for state-Antara Bose
Jamshedpur, June 10: For a people who have clung to next-door Bengal for healthcare for years, setting up a self-run school — English medium, no less — may well be just another way out of elusive state welfare measures. The 700-odd population of 19 villages that make up Gopalpur panchayat, 80km from Jamshedpur in East Singhbhum’s rebel-hit Baharagora block, have made up its mind to do just that. The primary schools, at...
More »‘It was cleared by eminent historians'-B Kolappan
Contending that the NCERT textbook on political science did not represent the views or prejudices of one or two authors, Yogendra Yadav, who was chief adviser to the NCERT on the subject, said the book was developed by a large team of political scientists, teachers and educationists. “Given the very sensitive nature of the book, the entire text was shown to three eminent historians of contemporary India — Professor Sunil Khilnani,...
More »“Regional parties in T.N., a good example of compatibility of regionalism and nationalism”
-The Hindu The following is an extract from the NCERT's political science (Class XII) textbook that has sparked a controversy due to a cartoon depicting the anti-Hindi agitation of 1965. (According to Yogendra Yadav, former chief adviser to the NCERT on the preparation of the textbook, a reading of the text accompanying the cartoon would show that the chapter was not aimed at denigrating the anti-Hindi agitation, but was actually a...
More »Dialogue is a casualty when ‘sensitivities' are benchmarks by Apoorvanand
-The Hindu The petition against the Ambedkar-Nehru cartoon, published in The Hindu (“Humour is by no means exempt from prejudice”, June 8, 2012), makes for sad reading. Sad, because it bears the signatures of some of our best scholars, universally admired for their rigorous scholarship, who nevertheless chose to sign a petition short on facts. The petition asks the NCERT's Textbooks Review Committee to “reconsider the Ambedkar cartoon (and possibly other such...
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