South Asia Citizens Web

The security establishment never tires of claiming that human rights activists are partisan, and only blame the state. But when they do expose Maoist crimes, the police is not interested. One wonders if the establishment’s problem is really the Maoists – in whose name the state is spending several thousand crores on militarisation – or rights activists and the idea of democracy they uphold.

A bombshell dropped by the University Grants Commission (UGC) on May 10th–the Gazette Notification 2016–has triggered a massive teachers’ rebellion at Delhi University (DU). When the Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) leadership gave a call for a boycott of the evaluation process, May 24th onwards, teachers responded with uncommon readiness and near unanimity. Evaluation centres remain deserted. Thousands of teachers thronged the Sriram College of Commerce (SRCC) auditorium and jammed the Ring Road and the streets of DU in the mid-day heat of May 28th. Close to 5,000 teachers marched from Mandi House to Parliament Street this afternoon, May 30th.

These schools are the infrastructure of the Right. They set up shop, teach their narrow and dangerous ideology, use modest amounts of money to build support through social services and then convert this into political power. In both Gujarat and in central India, the long-term work of the Right has now delivered these regions to them. Older nationalist and leftist parties have fallen by the wayside. When one asks, how did the land of Gandhi (Gujarat) become the laboratory for the Hindutva Right, the answer lies —partly—in this educational infrastructure.

On March 10, the Global Development and Environment Institute (GDAE) awarded the 2016 Leontief Prize to Diane Elson and Amit Bhaduri for their work to improve our economic understandings of development, power, gender, and human rights.

Marriage has curtailed women’s freedom for centuries