I had walked at the Nandigram rally. I walked again on this issue — twice, yesterday and today (Tuesday and Wednesday). The students approached me for their rally yesterday and today I was approached by members of JUTA, of which I am not a member. But since my own principles are involved, I did not hesitate to take a stand and join the rally. All of us have felt very deeply worried...
More »SEARCH RESULT
The Right to Learn
-Economic and Political Weekly Two years after the Right to education Act, the government needs to focus on quality. Two years is perhaps too short a period in which to assess how effective the groundbreaking Right of Children to Free and Compulsory education Act 2009 (RTE), which came into effect on 1 April 2010, has been in raising standards of education in a country as diverse as India. The very fact that...
More »Classroom struggle-Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Court settles the class issue, but the real challenges of RTE have to be met The debate over the Right to education is beginning to display characteristic symptoms of Indian debates. Elites are inventing specious arguments to condone the economic apartheid in the current system. But India’s self-appointed anti-elites are often even more elitist. They are more fixated on taking down elites a peg or two rather than intelligently fixing real...
More »The sacred mountain And why tribals are willing to die for it-Bibhuti Pati
Natives of Niyamgiri feel that the police is acting as an agent of the Vedanta group, playing dirty tricks to help the company go ahead with its plans to mine bauxite from the sacred hills ONE OF the world’s most controversial mines is back in the spotlight after hundreds protested against renewed efforts to mine Odisha’s Niyamgiri Hills. Dongria Kondh and Niyamgiri supporters held their own ‘public hearing’ in Odisha...
More »Bengal back in ‘Animal Farm’-Prithvijit Mitra
On March 15, 2011, when the Mamata Banerjee wave was at its zenith, thespians Saonli Mitra and Arpita Ghosh went to Bansberia in Hooghly to stage the anti-establishment play 'Poshu Khamar', based on George Orwell's Animal Farm. But they were turned back by local CPM MP Rupchand Pal, who feared that the play was meant to denigrate the then ruling Left Front. The public outrage against CPM's "social hegemony" was...
More »