An excerpt from Adman Madman by Rupangi Sharma and Prahlad Kakar NB: Prahlad and I go back sixty-three years, so he is among the few l can classify as chaddi dost. I first saw him in knickers and hairy legs when his mum, a friend of my parents, brought him to the Sainik School Kunjpura… Read More Memoir: Prahlad Kakar and Dilip Simeon: A Friendship in the Shadow of the Naxals
Kirti Trivedi For me, the most distressing and disturbing sight for the last two days have been the images forwarded to me, in which the hand-baggage and the vehicles of students arriving in Ashoka University for the next semester are being thoroughly searched, including glove compartments. Scanners and metal detectors have been installed at Ashoka… Read More University as Prison: A Parent Writes
The name of the book clearly suggests that it is part of a glorification drive for Modi. We need to ask whether it is appropriate to use university resources for this campaign. Apoorvanand The vice-chancellor (VC) of Delhi University, Yogesh Singh, last week exhorted the audience at a program in the conference hall of the university to think about giving… Read More A Controversial ‘Book Launch’ and Delhi University’s Descent Into Party Propaganda
Fascism in power in the 1930s brought the world to genocidal war. But memories have faded, as has the stigma attached to the far-right – and that’s dangerous… Democracy under capitalism has always been heavily curtailed by corporate interests and plutocrats who have enjoyed far greater power than the average voter. When capitalism falls into… Read More Young people are abandoning democracy for dictators. I can understand their despair
Juan Cole Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Palestinian Ministry of Education released a report this week detailing that 11,923 students in Gaza have been killed by Israel’s total war in the past year. In addition, 19,199 have been wounded, many with life-altering injuries. A physician working in Gaza last summer reported to HRW, “We are talking about… Read More Israel’s Scholasticide and the Irrelevance of US Politics: 11,923 Palestinian Students didn’t Go Back to School this Fall because Israel Killed them
The commission owes an apology to the people of this country for failing to prevent the death of a dedicated academician. (NB: Not just the commission, but the judiciary is complicit. The NHRC is headed by a retired justice of the Supreme Court. I will remind our judges of the unique position of a judge,… Read More How the NHRC Failed to Protect G. N. Saibaba
Anti-immigration parties are pushing policies that are hostile or indifferent towards science. David Matthews A surge in far-right parties entering governments across Europe is raising concerns for science. The parties, whose focus is typically immigration, care little about research, say policy experts. In the Netherlands — where the Party for Freedom (PVV), led by the… Read More Far-right governments seek to cut billions of euros from research in Europe
Shobhit Mahajan Hindustan Times, October 29, 2024 A week before the prospective groom’s family were to visit my uncle’s house, the preparations had started. The outside and the drawing room were quickly whitewashed, the furniture cleaned and polished, the flower pots in the garden got a fresh coat of geru (red ochre powder) and the… Read More NAAC Lessons on How not to assess a Varsity.
A rare statement issued last week by dozens of Chinese people living in Japan condemned the assault and called for reflections on the “underlying causes.” “The extreme nationalist hate education against Japan has been prevalent in China for a long time. It has obscured some Chinese people’s understanding of Japan, and even indulged ignorance and evil,” the statement… Read More ‘Education of hatred’: Killing of Japanese boy sparks soul searching in China over rising nationalism
Simon Jenkins Forget the NHS for a minute – and look to Britain’s universities, another institution in urgent need of fixing. A number are on the brink of bankruptcy or closure. Revenues are plummeting. Rich foreign students are vanishing. Jobs for graduates are falling and mental illness among students has reportedly multiplied by seven times… Read More Bankrupt and ravaged by student mental illness, Britain’s universities are badly in need of reform
After the truth-shower 