Innholdsfortegnelse for Monday, April 24, 2023 i India Today

The controversy over rewriting history in student curricula is with us again, rekindling a debate that has kept temperatures high around this subject for over two decades. Both politics of the highly charged kind and politics-neutral issues frame the debate. Last June, the NCERT, India’s official syllabus-maker, introduced some significant changes, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The National Education Policy, 2020 had formalised a principle that had found consensus all around and been already put into practice: a lighter workload for students. Progressively, since 2017, almost 30 per cent of the syllabi across subjects has been trimmed. Last June, the NCERT said the widespread learning disruptions caused by the lockdowns provided an urgent proximate cause for another round of revisions. Given how students had suffered since 2020, no…

Seventy-five years after India became an independent nation, where do we stand and what does our medium-term future hold? That is a question two recent books by two eminent economists seek to answer. Ashoka Mody, who served as senior economist in IMF and World Bank and is currently Charles and Marie Robertson visiting professor in international economic policy at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, thinks that India is irretrievably broken and probably cannot be fixed. Former chief economic advisor Ashok Lahiri, too, had stints with the IMF and the World Bank, apart from teaching economics at the Delhi School of Economics and serving as chairman of Bandhan Bank. Currently a member of the West Bengal legislative assembly, he does not quite share Mody’s gloom and doom, though he…

Political and media circles in Maharashtra were agog after reports that the leader of the Opposition Ajit Pawar had gone incommunicado on April 7, leaving for an undisclosed location without his security detail. However, the next day, the Nationalist Congress Party leader made a public appearance in Pune and said he had retired for some much-needed rest after his whirlwind tours left him with a prolonged bout of acidity. Despite his entreaties, Pawar, an ex-deputy CM, continues to be the target of media speculation thanks to his short-lived, early-morning dalliance with the BJP in 2019.…

1960-1970 ↘ Education minister under three PMs including in Jawaharlal Nehru’s last term, M.C. Chagla, initiates the writing of new textbooks to give Indian history a ‘secular’, ‘unbiased’ and ‘anti-colonial’ view. He set up a committee which commissioned textbooks by eminent historians such as Romila Thapar, R.S. Sharma, Satish Chandra, Bipan Chandra and Arjun Dev. This exercise was monitored by Chagla’s successor Saiyid Nurul Hasan from 1971. Critics claimed Hasan pushed writers who left a Marxist imprint on history texts. ↘ In 1969, a parliamentary panel set up by the Indira Gandhi regime wanted the text on ancient India to state that the Aryans were indigenous to India. The demand was nixed by the editorial board as well as Thapar, who was the author. ↘ Hindu and Sikh groups claimed…

↘ Brought in a constitutional amendment to give teeth to the National Commission for Backward Classes (NCBC) ↘ Given representation to the community, 27 OBC ministers now in the Union cabinet ↘ Social sector schemes delivered ‘without discrimination’ ↘ Extended reservation benefits to OBCs among Muslims and Christians ↘ States can now make their own OBC list to extend scheme benefits ↘ Legislation to ensure reservations for EWS over and above SC ceiling of 50 per cent…

MAHARANI (SonyLIV) Huma Qureshi makes the most of a career-defining role playing a reluctant Chief Minister who confronts and battles patriarchy in Bihar and gradually discovers the the power the position brings. Created by Subhash Kapoor. TANDAV (Amazon Prime Video) The drama landed the streaming platform in a legal quagmire with objections being raised over ‘hurt religious sentiments’ and politics. Created by Ali Abbas Zafar. HUMBLE POLITICIANN NOGRAJ (Voot Select) Danish Sait is a riot as he reprises the character he made famous on social media and later in a Kannada feature. The web series documents the misadventures of a self-obsessed, power-hungry politician, from a fictitious party of course. QUEEN (MX Player) Loosely based on the life of former Tamil Nadu CM J. Jayalalitha, the Tamil-language series documents a woman’s journey…

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↘ As many as 1,551, or 20 per cent, of the 7,903 plots in the UP’s mini industrial areas are lying vacant ↘ The bigger industrial areas are better-placed, with just 25 of the 3,699 plots vacant ↘ Physical verification is taking place after irregularities surfaced in the allotment of industrial plots in Fatehpur ↘ Factories were found to have been set up on only 101 of the 367 plots in the district’s eight industrial areas ↘ The vacant plots included 72 allotted to two educational institutes of MSME minister Rakesh Sachan in 2012. The administration had set up a temporary gaushala on a part of this land five years ago.…

As Project Tiger—the ambitious conservation programme launched for the big cat in 1973—completes 50 years, there’s some heartening news. The tiger numbers continue to rise in India, though at a slower rate, reveals the Status of Tigers 2022 report released by PM Narendra Modi on April 9. The quadrennial report pegs India’s tiger population at 3,167, up from the 2,967 estimated in 2018. Into its fifth edition, the countrywide assessment has used a refined and more extensive methodology, dividing tiger habitats into five landscapes. Broadly, there has been an increase in not just the numbers but also in the areas inhabited by the big cat. But is it time to rest on our laurels? Maybe not. While three landscapes have shown a rise in the tiger population, there has been…

Telangana BJP president ‘Bandi’ Sanjay is seldom hesitant to take on Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao. On April 7, he dared KCR to order a judicial inquiry by a sitting high court judge into the alleged circulation of the Hindi question papers of the current Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations on a messaging app, if he genuinely wanted to bring the real culprits to justice. The dare came from Sanjay soon after he was released on bail, following a court order. He was arrested on April 6. Earlier, while in prison, he wrote a letter to the BJP cadres, stating his arrest was a conspiracy of the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS). “Arresting me and harassing the BJP workers is like throwing a ball against the ground. We shall only…

With former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy joining the BJP on April 7, the saffron party continues the trend of importing Congress CMs. Last September, it scalped two ex-Congress CMs—Capt. Amarinder Singh in Punjab and Digambar Kamat in Goa. Since Narendra Modi took charge as prime minister in 2014, nine chief ministers from other parties, including seven from the Congress, have joined the BJP. Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik)’s Babulal Marandi did so in Jharkhand in 2020, the Shiv Sena’s Narayan Rane in Maharashtra in 2019, Congressmen S.M. Krishna in Karnataka and Narayan Dutt Tiwari in Uttarakhand in 2017, Vijay Bahuguna in Uttarakhand and Pema Khandu in Arunachal Pradesh in 2016. Four of the BJP’s current CMs are also ex-Congressmen, with Khandu being CM in both parties. Four…

CLASS 12: POLITICAL SCIENCE ◼ In the first chapter of Politics in India Since Independence, the following paragraphs were deleted under the sub-head, ‘Mahatma Gandhi’s Sacrifice’: “He (Gandhi) was particularly disliked by those who wanted Hindus to take revenge or who wanted India to become a country for the Hindus, just as Pakistan was for Muslims… Gandhiji thought that these people were misguided… His steadfast pursuit of Hindu-Muslim unity provoked Hindu extremists so much that they made several attempts to assassinate Gandhiji.” “Gandhiji’s death had an almost magical effect on the communal situation in the country. Partition-related anger and violence suddenly subsided. The Government of India cracked down on organisations that were spreading communal hatred. Organisations like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were banned for some time.” CLASS 12: HISTORY ◼…

CLASS 12: HISTORY ◼ In Themes of Indian History-Part II, the chapters ‘Kings and Chronicles’ and ‘Mughal Courts’ (c. 16th and 17th centuries) have been deleted. The chapter included references to Mughal-era manuscripts like Akbarnama and Padshahnama, and court protocols of the Mughal rulers. CLASS 11: HISTORY In Themes in World History, chapters on ‘The Central Islamic Lands’, ‘The Confrontation of Cultures’ and ‘The Industrial Revolution’ have been removed. CLASS 7: HISTORY ◼ In Our Pasts-II, the chapter ‘The Mughal Empire’ has been renamed ‘The Mughals (16th to 17th Century)’. A two-page chart in the chapter detailing the achievements of Mughal emperors such as Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb has been removed. A section on Akbar’s policies, including the broad features of his administration, his interest in the…

2017-2018 ↘ In the Class 12 political science textbook Politics in India Since Independence, the NCERT changed a heading of a passage describing the 2002 Gujarat riots from ‘Anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat’ to just ‘Gujarat riots’. Also, GST and demonetisation and Beti Bachao were added as topics to books on economics, business studies, accountancy and political science. 2018-2019 ↘ In the history textbooks, the NCERT added content related to ‘knowledge, traditions and practices of India’, including portions on Vikram Samvat (the Hindu calendar), metallurgy, Shivaji, Maharana Pratap, the Paika revolt, Subhas Chandra Bose, Swami Vivekananda, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Rani Avantibai Lodhi and Sri Aurobindo Ghose. ↘ Content on caste conflicts, cricket history and the impact of colonial and capitalism on farmers was excised from the history textbook for Class 9.…

↘ UTTAR PRADESH OBC vote: 40%* ● Non-Yadav OBC leaders get a big share of power as ministers, other government appointments ● Reservation for OBCs in government (state as well as Centre) jobs and educational institutions ● Allying with smaller caste-based fronts ● Making inroads with OBC Muslims showcasing Centre’s social sector schemes ↘ BIHAR OBC votes: 47% ● Kushwaha leader Samrat Choudhary appointed state unit chief to woo the influential OBC community ● Popularising the pro-OBC benefits extended by Centre like reservations, scholarships, grants etc. ● Making inroads with OBC Muslims ↘ ODISHA OBC vote: 50% ● OBC leader Manmohan Samal is now state president; gearing up for the BJP government’s castebased survey results expected in July ● OBCs now get 11.2% reservations; BJP is pushing for more to…

For anyone interested in knowing about India’s northeast, a region with a growing presence in the mind space of the “national mainstream”, Ashish Kundra’s A Resurgent Northeast: Narratives of Change, can act as a primer. The author is an IAS officer from the AGMUT (Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory) cadre and served in Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. Through his job, he had substantial exposure to the region. Fortunately, the book doesn’t read like a bureaucratic report, but like a long-form journalistic piece with an outsider’s perspective. The book begins by trying to understand the roots of backwardness in the northeast. Without directly blaming India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, as has been the norm these days, Kundra hints at Nehru’s well-intentioned policy of protecting tribal culture in the region by…

The National Gallery is Britain’s most revered art institution along with the equally venerable Royal Academy. For many decades, these were the two pillars of the British establishment’s conception of great art. Even as all sorts of modern art movements swirled around them, the ‘National’ and the ‘Academy’ stayed grimly besieged, sticking to their guns of the large portraits and Biblical set-pieces and so on. For the longest time, the most modern and radical painter either pile displayed was one Joseph Mallord William Turner, and not because they recognised his radicalism but because they loved his classicism. Over the last 60-70 years, this has changed. The RA was the first to start admitting contemporary art. The National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery have become less fuddy-duddy over the last…

From runways to red carpets, the sari is enjoying an international moment. Most recently, saris were on display in their full splendour at the Oscars, where Guneet Monga, executive producer of The Elephant Whisperers (2022), received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Film in a pink Banarasi—a moment that will forever be etched in our memory. Female members of the RRR (2022) contingent too showed off the classic Indian drape, not to mention All That Breathes (2022) director Shaunak Sen’s wife, who turned up in a hot pink sari. The Design Museum, London’s upcoming exhibition—The Offbeat Sari—which opens in May, could not have come at a more opportune time. Put together by Priya Khanchandani, the museum’s head of curatorial, the exhibition will bring together saris from designers, wearers and craftspersons,…

Maharashtra may soon join the list of states with a law to curb ‘love jihad’. This comes in the backdrop of a series of protests by the ‘Sakal Hindu Samaj’, an umbrella group of Hindu right-wing organisations, which has sought such a law. The protests have been building up since the gruesome murder of 27-year-old Shraddha Walkar in May 2022, allegedly by her live-in partner Aaftab Poonawala. Walkar hailed from Vasai near Mumbai. State BJP legislators like Nitesh Rane, Atul Bhatkhalkar and Ram Kadam, too, have been hankering for such a law. The morchas have seen demagogues like T. Raja Singh, the suspended BJP legislator from Telangana, make hate speeches targeting the Muslim community. The Eknath Shinde-led Maharashtra government set up a committee in December 2022 to monitor inter-faith marriages,…

#BeTheBetterGuy A Road Safety Initiative A Road Safety Initiative he most basic safety feature in a vehicle is the seat belt. It is a primary restraint system and acts as the first line of defence in the event of an accident. In 2021, as per the Road Accidents in India survey by MoRTH, more than 16,000 people lost their lives due to the non usage of seat belts with over 39,000 reported injuries. Once again, statistics aside, the habit of using seat belts needs to be inculcated by understanding their importance and function. No matter where you’re seated in the vehicle, your first point of action should be to fasten the seat belt. While there has been an encouraging rise in the usage of seat belts amongst those seated in…

CLASS 12: POLITICAL SCIENCE ◼ The chapter titled ‘The Crisis of Democratic Order’ in Politics in India Since Independence has been reduced by five pages. The deleted content pertains to the controversial imposition of Emergency by the Indira Gandhi government. It, however, retains excesses such as the arrest of political workers, media restrictions, torture and custodial deaths, and forced sterilisations. It also mentions the Commission of Inquiry set up by the Janata Party government in May 1977. CLASS 12: SOCIOLOGY ◼ This paragraph has been deleted from Chapter 6 of Indian Society: “The Indian people had a brief experience of authoritarian rule during the ‘Emergency’ enforced between June 1975 and January 1977. Parliament was suspended and new laws were made directly by the government. Civil liberties were revoked and a…

LAST AUGUST, MUCH BEFORE RAHUL GANDHI’S BHARAT JODO YATRA commenced from Kanyakumari, the Congress in Karnataka got into election mode with a show of strength that set alarm bells ringing in the state’s ruling BJP. The occasion was former chief minister Siddaramaiah’s 75th birthday for which his loyalists mobilised a rally at Davanagere, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in recent years, with crowds spilling over to choke the highway transiting through the town in central Karnataka. In the run-up to that event, however, the central Congress leadership was wary of one crucial factor that could distract the party from its attempt to reclaim power in Karnataka—the competing ambitions of Siddaramaiah and state Congress president D.K. Shivakumar. Siddaramaiah’s birthday on August 3 was deftly turned into a party event…

In 2019, just a few months before the Lok Sabha election, came two political dramas. The first, The Accidental Prime Minister, based on Sanjaya Baru’s book of the same name, offered the portrait of a Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (Anupam Kher) subservient to the Gandhis. The second, PM Narendra Modi (Vivek Oberoi), was a poorly made hagiography. Both were duds at the box office. Four years later, with elections just a year away, audiences can expect an onslaught of political films likely to generate as much conversation as controversy. Of these, two will feature portrayals of India’s own Iron Lady, Indira Gandhi. The first, Emergency (release date to be announced), has Kangana Ranaut producing, directing and acting in the film. In the second, the Meghna Gulzar-directed Sam Bahadur, starring Vicky Kaushal…

When I was an undergrad, the then-recent film Into the Wild (2007), about a disillusioned young American who retreated into the Alaskan wilderness and eventually both starved and accidentally poisoned himself to death, was all the rage. ‘Society’, Eddie Vedder’s existential anthem from the movie, declared: “Society, you’re a crazy breed/Hope you’re not lonely without me.” What I disliked about this technically accomplished but curiously soulless movie was its unsubtle, soft-focus romanticisation of voluntary seclusion as well as mental illness. V.J. James’s recently published novel-in-translation, Dattapaharam: Call of the Forest (translated by Ministhy S.), also investigates a young man’s forest retreat, his quest to achieve “unity with nature”. But the book does so with such startling insights and depth of characterisation that it leaves unidimensional, wannabe-Walden narratives like Into the…

Q. How was this gold different from the one at the World Championships last year? This year’s World Championships were very meaningful. Firstly, the competition was in India and I was the face of the event, so I left no stone unturned in my preparation. Also, my opponents were tough. Then, I competed in a new weight category and had to cut an additional two kilos. Q. From posters in the arena to the crowd chanting your name, how much pressure is there on you as the most recognised Indian boxer today? I would say that the pressure I feel is positive because it motivates me a lot. The support from the home fans boosts my confidence. It was one of the major factors in my winning the gold medal. Q. There were…