Few traditions are as admirable as that of self-taught working people, including the women mill workers in Victorian Lancashire who would rise an hour before work in order to read Shakespeare together. It was for these patronisingly named “autodidacts” — a category which sometimes included anyone who hadn’t been to Oxbridge — that Ruskin College,… Read More The workers were never ignorant
Norms recently drafted the University Grants Commission (UGC) to invite foreign universities to open campuses in India have received a variegated response so far. Deepanshu Mohan According to the norms – titled ‘University Grants Commission (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations, 2023’ – announced by the statutory body’s chairperson M. Jagadesh Kumar, foreign… Read More Foreign Universities Regulations Reflect Modi Government’s Indifference To Higher Education
… there is a more foundational reason why DeSantis and the far right are attacking education: it is the means by which our young people are made into citizens. Schools and universities are laboratories of aspiration, places where young people cultivate their own capacities, expose themselves to the experiences and worldviews of others, and learn… Read More Schools and universities are ground zero for America’s culture war
Harsh Thakor With the goal of raising class consciousness and mobilizing the working population of Banaras, especially the weavers, a meeting was organized at the Swayamvar Vatika on behalf of the Fatima-Savitri Janasamiti. The weavers themselves openly discussed the issues related to their status and wages in the programme. Mohammad Ahmad Ansari, who toils with… Read More Weavers of Banaras are forced to work for less than the minimum wage
A tribute to Richard Bernstein, 1932-2022 “All academic thinking, whether right, left or middle, is conservative in the extreme,” Arendt had written to him. “Nobody wants to hear what he hasn’t heard before.” Recalling these words, Bernstein leaned toward his laptop camera, growing bigger on our screens. We must all fight off this tendency to… Read More A philosophy professor’s final class
NB: In India nowadays there’s a separate problem. You need to be in agreement with the world view of the ruling dispensation – whether or not you know any history. DS David A. Bell A historian friend once told me that when he went on the job market, he put in three applications and received… Read More So you want to be a history professor
Chandan Gowda Sara Aboobacker and her husband, an engineer with the government, moved to Bangalore in 1981. He had been transferred from Mangalore. One day, as she was heading out of a public library in Halasur, Lankesh Patrike, which was dangling in a roadside stall, caught her eye. She bought a copy of the eight-page Kannada… Read More Nadoja Sara Aboobacker
The outcry in Bareilly last month over students singing an Iqbal poem reminds us that we live in a hyper-nationalist time, where leaders glorify territorial nationalism beyond measure and deliberately concoct insidious ancillaries anchored in religion, language, race or colour. As I read about the furore in Bareilly over Iqbal’s poem “Bachche ki Du’a” (“A… Read More A child’s prayer. By C. M. Naim
First posted October 25, 2011 I’ve learned that you can’t hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk. (age 6) I’ve learned that I like my teacher because she cries when we sing Silent Night (age 7) I’ve learned that when I wave to people in the country, they stop what they are… Read More What I have learned (humans aged 6 to 92)
Sonali Kolhatkar There is a common feeling that many of us have experienced in professional or academic environments, especially when we struggle against gender or racial bias. It’s called “imposter syndrome”—the feeling that one doesn’t deserve one’s position and that others will discover this lack of competence at any moment. I felt this way as… Read More Nepotism babies and the myth of American meritocracy
After the truth-shower 