My reading of Prabhat Patnaik's essay (“Parliament's say extends to the classroom,” The Hindu, May 22, 2012), on the recent controversy regarding the removal of a cartoon from a textbook, is somewhat different from Neeladri Bhattacharya's (“A disquieting polemic against academic autonomy,” May 29, 2012). If I understand that essay's argument, it had two points to make. The first is less important than the second, but it is nevertheless not...
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'Predicting poll results in India is tough'-Allan J Lichtman
-The Economic Times Allan J Lichtman's answers are brief and to the point. But by force of habit, he seems to love questions - he answers them animatedly, like professors who are used to keen listeners. This energetic American University professor of history is the one who has predicted correctly the results of all US presidential polls since 1984. "I have always been anxious," says he of the mood in the run-up...
More »Chorus of unreason -TK Rajalakshmi
Political parties across the spectrum get into a tangle over an innocuous cartoon in a school textbook THE textBooks of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) are in the news again. This time, it is not history but political science textBooks that managed to get almost all Members of Parliament on their feet on an emotive issue and for reasons that defied logic. One day before the 60th...
More »Beyond heroes and villains-Alex M George
The new curriculum sought to overcome the visual baggage of old textBooks. Today, India debates whether or not cartoons should be included in school textBooks. Such debates are welcome to improve our understanding of school education in general, and textBooks in particular. But before the review committee throws all cartoons out of the school tub, it would help to understand a few facets of textbook preparation, especially the selection of visuals. Locating...
More »Quality Constraints in Education Fallout of the Cartoon Controversy by Krishna Kumar
It needs pensive reflection to understand how an organisation whose name is perhaps the most widely recognised public sector brand across the length and breadth of India could become the target of so much instant anger and contempt in the highest legislative forum of the republic. Krishna Kumar (anhsirk.kumar@gmail.com) teaches education at Delhi University. The cyclone that hit Parliament on 11 and 14 May over the so-called cartoon controversy indicates, among other...
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