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...

-The Hindustan Times A magistrate court in Bina, Madhya Pradesh, directed the information and broadcasting ministry to stop telecast of the godman Nirmal Baba’s programme ‘Nirmal Darbar’ till further orders. The court also issued an arrest warrant against Nirmal Baba on Saturday. If legal action is not taken against such persons, common people would be asking us – does law exist only for weak or the poor? It is duty of...

The Conflict of Interest Bill introduced in the Rajya Sabha is a welcome step to control the grey areas in which “public private partnerships” are conducted. AMONG the many things that have proliferated in the economic boom of the brash new India is conflict of interest. So widespread, comprehensive and many-tentacled has this feature become that it is often no longer even recognised to exist, much less to be a...

-The Hindustan Times The government on Thursday put the controversial poverty estimation in a deep freeze by appointing a new expert group to recommend a new estimation methodology aimed at linking government subsidies to poor. The group to be led by C Rangarajan, head of Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council and having three others members is expected to submit its report in nine months, minister of planning Ashwini Kumar told reporters. However, not...

Ambedkar is prophet to a people he created soul and politics for The recent controversy over the cartoon of Babasaheb Ambedkar sitting on a snail and Pandit Nehru whipping it from behind, indicating that Ambedkar had made the process of making the Constitution slow, whereas Nehru was for hastening it, created a massive ruckus in Parliament, cutting across all political parties. The cartoon, drawn by P. Shankar Pillai in 1949,...