Arrested, JNU students protested imposition of edu-preneurs on varsity: RTE Forum

By A Representative
Condemning the arrest of over 100 Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students, who were marching to Parliament, the Right to Education (RTE) Forum, an education rights organization, has said that the “ruthless” attack on JNU’s peaceful protesters, who included JNU student’s union president Aishe Ghoshe, is an attack on the their constitutional right.
In a statement, RTE Forum’s Mitra Ranjan said, “The steep fee hike in education at JNU will make education inaccessible to a number of students, coming from deprived socio-economic backgrounds and marginalized communities.”
It added, “Education is a public good and a human right, everyone has the right to equitable and quality education and it is the state’s responsibility to ensure this right is safeguarded.”
The RTI Forum noted, “The multiple forms of privatisation which has been emphasized in the New Education Policy (NEP) final draft is a violation of the constitutional right to education and completely denigrates the importance of public education in a democracy.”

Supporting the JNU students’ demands, it said, the students were only “demanding for their right to education and protection of their university from the clutches of edu-preneurs and private investors”, adding, “It reveals the lack of political will and regressive undemocratic use of violence to curb the voices of students demanding equitable education for all.”

According to the statement, “The staggering hike fee at JNU is a clear evidence of the looming privatization of education and this will push out many students from the system of education. Privatization will lead to increased shrinking of public investment and proliferate the existing inequality in education.”

Manufacturing, services: India's low-skill, middle-skill labour remains underemployed

By Francis Kuriakose* The Indian economy was in a state of deceleration well before Covid-19 made its impact in early 2020. This can be inferred from the declining trends of four important macroeconomic variables that indicate the health of the economy in the last quarter of 2019.

Incarceration of Prof Saibaba 'revives' the question: What is crime, who is criminal?

By Kunal Pant* In 2016, a Supreme Court Judge asked the state of Maharashtra, “Do you want to extract a pound of flesh?” The statement was directed against the state for contesting the bail plea of Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba. Saibaba was arrested in 2014, a justification for which was to prevent him from committing what the police called “anti-national activities.”

Modi’s Israel visit strengthened Pakistan’s hand in US–Iran truce: Ex-Indian diplomat

By Jag Jivan M. K. Bhadrakumar , a career diplomat with three decades of service in postings across the former Soviet Union, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, and Turkey, has warned that the current truce in the US–Iran war is “fragile and ridden with contradictions.” Writing in his blog India Punchline , Bhadrakumar argues that while Pakistan has emerged as a surprising broker of dialogue, the durability of the ceasefire remains uncertain.

Search This Blog