The COVID-19 pandemic and the series of lockdowns have ripped off the makeshift bandages covering the sores of India’s educational system. Millions of school-age children are falling off the education map owing to a lack of access to online education, giving rise to new structures of caste and class oppression.

Ahead of Assembly elections in crucial States, the BJP dials up its communal propaganda and launches a Modi-centric campaign in a desperate bid to stem rising public discontent and quell inner-party rumblings.

A recent survey of nearly 1,400 schoolchildren in underprivileged households brings out the catastrophic consequences of prolonged school closure in the last year and a half. In rural areas, only 8 per cent of sample children are studying online regularly, 37 per cent are not studying at all, and about half are unable to read more than a few words. Most parents want schools to reopen as soon as possible.

Interview with Professor Krishna Kumar, educationist and former director, NCERT.

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik launches a slew of welfare schemes and provides timely aid to farmers and marginalised sections in the pandemic, ahead of rural and urban local body elections scheduled for next year.

The ‘culling’ that has taken place due to school closure during the pandemic fits in well with the New Education Policy in a context where the education system has been designed to exclude the oppressed and marginalised majority of students.

The entry of speculative investors into carbon markets could distort their working, and the resultant volatility and uncertainty are likely to inflict much collateral damage even as the objectives with which those markets were created remain unrealised.

The composition of the caretaker Taliban government, which has no representation of either Shia Hazaras or women, has come in for much international criticism. While the Taliban is far from faultless, it is the West that has contributed in a major way towards the current mess in Afghanistan.

Education came to a standstill for more than a year in almost all the madrasas as a majority of students could not afford smartphones for online learning.

With the Taliban in control of Afghanistan, there is concern in India that terror activity could spill over from that country into the Kashmir valley, especially in the context of the growing alienation of Kashmiris as a result of the Modi government’s muscular policies on the Union Territory.

The huge success of the Kisan Mahapanchayat at Muzaffarnagar comes as a second wind to the farmers’ movement and expands its reach 10 months after the siege started on Delhi’s borders.

An international online conference elicits wide-ranging views on the global Hindutva movement and its vicious spread.

The subtext of the declaration of August 14, Pakistan’s Independence Day, as “Partition Horrors Remembrance Day” is to blame Muslims and the Muslim League for Partition. Narendra Modi wants to go down in history as the architect of a Hindu state. In this, he will fail.

Riddled by faction feuds and plagued by scandals, the ANC government struggles to deal with the aftermath of the July riots.

For the first time in 20 years, Afghanistan is experiencing peace and security. However, the composition of the interim Cabinet does not inspire much confidence that the Taliban will stick to the commitments it made after the deal with the U.S. in Doha.

The timing of a bishop’s warning to his flock against the dangers of ‘narcotic jehad’ and his vehemence catch Kerala by surprise. And the BJP finds in the controversy an opportunity to woo Christian voters in the State.

Interview with Manoranjan Byapari, rickshaw wallah-turned-writer-turned Trinamool Congress MLA.

The pronouncements in the National Education Policy 2020 about increased public investment, autonomy, and equity and inclusiveness in higher education seem to be myths that were propagated to conceal the real intentions.

Keshav Desiraju (1955-2021), former Union Health Secretary, was the driving force behind India’s mental health care policy. He was not only assiduously engaged in understanding public health issues, he sought to introduce good governance in the health sector.