South Asia Citizens Web

Today, higher education in India is faced with its gravest threat. Already in a state of crisis as a result of years of overload in conditions of financial and academic neglect, it is now being subjected to authoritarian functioning, loss of autonomy, sudden and frequent imposition of academic schemes and structural changes without due consideration and adequate debate among students and teachers, lack of facilities and an acute shortage of permanent faculty. The withdrawal of the state from its obligation to sustain this significant social sector has facilitated the trend to privatize and commercialize universities, colleges, and technical and professional courses has gathered momentum over the last two decades . . .

t is shocking that a helpless Muslim family in village Bisara in Dadri, NOIDA was brutally attacked and mercilessly beaten by miscreants in which Akhlaq was killed while others injured- one being critical. It is reported that an announcement was made around 9.30 PM on 28th Sept. 2015 by some people from the village temple that Muslims were consuming beef. Surprisingly hundreds of people gathered in few minutes and soon attacked the family of Akhlaq who was killed.

To put it in a somewhat clichéd manner, contemporary Hindutva operates in the Sawarkar-Golwalkar paradigm and whatever the apparent inconsistencies this paradigm may throw up, critics would be making a msitake if they take satisfaction from those inconsistencies instead of realizing that a clumsy compromise on questions of rituals and traditional understanding of society are only secondary to the idea of Hindu nation and its imagined enemies

We demand that Chief Minister Shri Akhilesh yadav urgently intervene and release all the detained activists in Allahabad and also release the protesting farmers who are languishing in jail for more than ten days on false charges. Action also must be taken against the police officials who used high handed methods and have arrested 12 juveniles and are being kept in prison. Government also must implement the High Court Order and stop all forcible land acquisition in the area immediately.

Two articles by Bishwanath Ghosh