A school closure that must be called out

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‘The order to close down the only Gondi-medium school in Maharashtra raises important questions’ | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto The order to close down the only Gondi-medium school in a village of Maharashtra raises important questions. The school was started in Mohgaon village in the Fifth Schedule area of the Gadchiroli district, in 2019, as … Read more

Identities and symbols: on Tamil Nadu and the ‘Roo’

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Even as the ruling DMK government in Tamil Nadu engages in a political discourse with the BJP-led regime at the Centre over the delimitation of parliamentary and Assembly constituencies and the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), its use of the Tamil letter ‘Roo’ (‘ரூ’) instead of the Indian currency symbol ‘₹’ in the … Read more

Modern day summitry, its perils and prospects

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Across the world, there is broad agreement, including in the area of politics and diplomacy, that a strong leader can be useful. The term, no doubt, carries more than one interpretation, but is generally taken to mean a leader who concentrates a great deal of power in his hands and dominates both a wide swathe … Read more

Can the 2025 draft regulation ensure equity? Addressing discrimination in higher education

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The University Grants Commission’s (UGC) Draft (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2025 purport to curb discrimination based on religion, race, caste, sex, or place of birth and to promote equity within Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).  They, however, lack the necessarystrategic and operational interventionsmuch like a similar series of regulations in the past, … Read more

Is learning Hindi as a third language necessary?

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The National Education Policy, 2020, encourages students up to at least Class 5 to learn a regional language in addition to the local language or mother tongue and English. While the Central government asserts that the choice of the additional regional language is left to the States, the NEP’s strong pitch for the three-language formula … Read more

​Old ties, new priorities: On India-Mauritius ties  

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Mauritius this week, and his meeting with its newly elected Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam, marked a decade since his last visit. His trip aimed to strengthen the India-Mauritius strategic partnership and launch new economic and development initiatives. While Mr. Ramgoolam’s previous tenure (2005–14) overlapped briefly with Mr. Modi’s, the … Read more

India’s choice between progress and parochialism

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India stands at a critical juncture, caught between the anvil of technological disruption and the hammer of cultural nationalism. While the Union government champions economic independence and global technological leadership — exemplified by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s co-chairing of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit in Paris in February — its linguistic policies risk undermining … Read more

​Acceptable contrast: on the real economy 

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Three sets of data — January’s industrial production, February’s retail inflation and the performance of mutual funds in February — present a contrast between India’s real economy and the financial markets, that is both concerning and heartening. In the real economy, February’s 3.61% retail inflation is a seven-month low aided by a steady and welcome … Read more