The row over a cartoon featuring Dalit leader Ambedkar shows a lack of critical thinking in the Indian polity. The cartoon by Shankar Pillai that caused such pandemonium in the Indian Parliament on 11 May 2012 when various Dalit and non-Dalit members demanded its omission from a Class IX textbook was originally published in 1949. It depicts Dalit leader Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar with a whip riding a snail entitled ‘Constitution’...

Religious and social groups have trampled on the freedom of expression of artists and scholars to serve their own agendas. “FOR all the big talk about India's great tradition of cultural and religious tolerance, many forces in the social life of our country and a number of established organisations, including the so-called non-political ones, have time and again resorted to blatant suppression of freedom of expression, pointing forcefully to the...

By all outward appearances, the controversial Print and Electronic Media Standards and Regulation Bill, 2012, has been shelved. The Congress leadership has already distanced itself from the contents of the Bill, stating that it was solely advanced by Meenakshi Natarajan, the party's Lok Sabha member from Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh. The first-time MP, who is a close aide of party general secretary Rahul Gandhi, refused to comment on the Bill...

-IANS Union Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal Monday said that freedom of expression is "contextual". His statement came even as members in the Lok Sabha once again united in criticising cartoons in NCERT textbooks, stating that these allegedly denigrated political leaders, especially the ones on B.R. Ambedkar. Sibal promised the Lok Sabha that all objectionable material would be removed and the role of advisors of NCERT (National Council for Educational Research and...

“No response from CM to abetment complaints against BJP leader, minister” The controversy over the involvement of Madhya Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party president Prabhat Jha and Tribal Affairs Minister Harishankar Khatik in the marriage of a minor girl from Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh does not seem to be dying down. After writing to BJP national president Nitin Gadkari and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Ajay...