Education News

Last month two significant and keenly anticipated elections for control of the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) and Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) produced contrasting results which are being interpreted as forerunners of General Election 2019 scheduled for next summer.

The 135,000 (44 percent turnout) members of DUSU who voted on September 12, returned candidates […]

In maharashtra — india’s most industrialised state (pop.114 million) — 25,000 college and university teachers have been on an indefinite ‘cease-work’ strike since September 25. They are protesting poor pay scales and a huge number of teacher vacancies in the state’s government- funded higher education institutions.

The Maharashtra Federation of University & College Teachers Organisation (MFUCTO) […]

The political power and influence of the students’ community in the eastern seaboard state of West Bengal (pop.91 million) has been historically acknowledged right from the heyday of the anarchic Naxalite movement of the 1970s — often romanticised as the golden age of student politics in Bengal. Moreover in Bengal, Gandhian non-violence made minimal impact […]

Despite a stringent law against ragging in Tamil Nadu (pop.72 million) and a slew of directives issued by the Supreme Court to state governments and educational institutions countrywide to curb the practice of ragging, this pernicious campus initiation ritual has not been eradicated. Persistent fear, threat of violence and abuse continue to stalk school-leavers entering […]

In the public perception, Bangalore (pop.12 million, renamed Bengaluru in 2014 in a fit of foolish sub-nationalism which has jeopardised its international brand as India’s Silicon Valley) is the garden city of India. Ex facie, the statistics are impressive. The charm of this once clean green city which attracted a bevy of the world’s top-ranked […]

“Honest politics needs intelligent debate. One of the clearest signs of fascist politics is attacks on universities and expertise — the support systems of discussion and the sources of knowledge and facts.”

Jason Stanley, professor at Yale University (The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 2)

“I think some day, and soon, I’ll go back to teaching. This […]

The tragic suicide of 17-year-old Anitha, an aspiring medical student from a Dalit family in rural Tamil Nadu (pop.72.1 million) on September 1, has sent shockwaves across the country and sparked huge protests by several political parties, college students and activists in the state. Anitha’s tragedy was that she averaged 98 percent in the class […]

After a record breaking 104 days, the general strike in the Darjeeling hills district of West Bengal by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) which is demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland to be carved out of West Bengal, was called off on September 27, following an appeal by Union home minister Rajnath Singh. Singh said […]