RTE Forum, Gujarat, releasing fact-sheet on education A Gujarat government  document  has revealed that it is planning to close down 5,223 schools in the name of school merger. The document, dated July 20, 201 was released by the Right to Education (RTE) Forum, Gujarat. It shows that the worst-affected districts because of this merger are those which are populated by marginalized communities – especially tribals, Dalits and minorities, said RTE Forum’s Gujarat convener Mujahid Nafees.

A senior Congress leader, considered close to interim party president Sonia Gandhi, has suggested a way out of the current impasse on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), which is being opposed across India for making religion as the basis for providing citizenship to the persecuted minorities from three neighbouring countries -- Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

A fact-sheet released by the Right to Education (RTE) Forum, a network of 10,000 civil society organizations across 19 states, has revealed that girls are twice less likely as boys to receive 4 years of schooling. It further said, 30% of girls from the poorest families have never set foot inside a classroom, and 40% of adolescent girls between ages 15-18 years are not attending any educational institution.

There was a time when we used to reject the Indian Constitution as "bourgeois". Those were the student days of early 1970s. Vigorous, youthful, though controversial. At that time, I used to be part of the Students Federation of India (SFI), CPI-M's student wing. We were told to believe by Delhi University party ideologues that the Constitution served the bourgeois-landlord state, led by the big bourgeoisie, which was in alliance with the imperialists. I don't know about others, but surely, I didn't understand much of it. Everything, including Premchand's novels, would be seen within that framework. One of the ideologues, Sudhish Panchari, truly an incisive Hindi critic, I recall, said how should one see “Godan” within the framework of bourgeois-land government (and all that) addressing a seminar in Jamia Millia Islamia. I would take it all with a pinch of salt, but had no idea how to question it. At that time we hadn't read (even less understood) Dr BR Amb...

  India appears to be competing with terrorist-stricken north-central African nation, Chad, in the number of internet shutdowns. In 2019, says a recent report, released by the UK-based top10vpn.com, which provides services meant to protect online privacy, India experienced 4,196 hours of internet shutdown, next only to Chad, with 4,728 hours of internet shutdown.

The other day, I went to attend an NGO event in Ahmedabad. It was called "Policies of Inclusion: Education and Wealth". Organised at the Ahmedabad Management Association by an NGO which claims to be working with governments in 22 states, including that of Gujarat, I attended the event during the second half, and my job seemed limited to answering a couple of queries on the role of media in helping usher in inclusive policies though development journalism. I don't know how far I satisfied those who attended the event. My argument was straight: While the corporate-controlled media would oblige you if you do proper media advocacy, you cannot expect much from it, as its interests lie somewhere else. I recalled how a top media baron struck a big cross after jotting down "liberal social agenda" on the board, stating, "We are in the business of news." So the way out, I suggested, was to look for alternative media for propagating inclusiveness, offered by seve...

In an amusing opinion piece in “Washington Post” (WP), former "Tehelka" journalist Rana Ayyub  – whose book on Gujarat riots, “Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover Up”, based on her undercover operations with government officials as a documentary filmmaker, made her famous – has blamed three Bollywood Khans, but most notably Saif Ali Khan, for playing an “off-screen role, enabling the worst impulses of the government.” The WP opinion piece seemed amusing to me, because, it is doubtful if highly well-informed journalist Ayub wasn’t in know of what was happening in Bollywood, though she lives in Mumbai. There is reason to wonder: When the WP piece appeared, there were no ripples of unease in the Bollywood over the police clampdown. Referring to “police vandalism and brutality” on anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protesters, especially in Uttar Pradesh, which led to several deaths, Ayub said in the opinion piece,  titled  “As repression in India gets worse, notable figures ...