Personal View

New Maharashtra rules will restrict transparency, promote corruption Alok Tiwari A consistent feature of governments under Narendra Modi-led BJP, whether at the Centre or in the states, has been their attempt to abridge the rights of citizens. Every new law or an amendment to an existing one, every framing of rules, every act has been towards decreasing the space of individuals and increasing power of the state. There is not a single instance where citizens now have greater protection against excesses of the state than before 2014. Be it the laws related to taxation, information technology, crime, or even food; there is less protection for citizens and more authority to the state. The state can be more intrusive and more coercive while citizens have fewer ways in which to preserve their personal liberties and freedoms. And these are not just provisions enacted and kept in cold storage for use during emergencies. The governments have not been shy in using them, mostly to curb diss...

Obscuring Mohenjo Daro figurine is a sign of intellectual hollowness Alok Tiwari As if messing up their examinations — and their future — was not enough, we are now out to mess up the hearts and minds of poor CBSE students. Who would have thought this would be the new battlefield in our cultural wars? It was not long ago when the Supreme Court took umbrage at the passing reference about corruption in judiciary in the class 8 textbook. The court banned the book and ordered all copies withdrawn because it did not wish to see the young minds polluted by the thoughts of corruption in high places. For a court that has watched civil liberties erode, democracy develop cracks, and secularism crumble while barely raising a finger, the concern for the young minds was touching. Now mandarins of NCERT that publishes CBSE textbooks are suffering similar pangs of conscience. They quietly darkened the image of an Indus Valley Civilization bronze figurine ‘Dancing Girl’ in the class 9 textbooks ...

Comical steps in the aftermath of NEET leak will not work Alok Tiwari At a time when the world is trying to understand how to deal with consequences of Artificial Intelligence and best strategies to survive climate change, we are confounded by the logistics of conducting an exam properly. The fallout from NEET paper leak seems never ending. Amid all that, there is another fiasco around the CBSE exams. Students have found someone else’s answer sheets got evaluated in their name. Nobody really knows its true extent and how bad it is. Just that poor students are no longer sure whether there is any connection between what they have written in the examination and what their mark-sheets say. Underneath that a whole new scandal emerged about how CBSE appointed a tainted tech company to provide on-screen marking system. For a change, country’s premier investigation agencies are doing more than just dirty work of BJP. They have rounded up a string of people that include paper setters, tea...

SC verdict on SIR short shrifts citizens’ constitutional right to vote Alok Tiwari It would be an understatement to say that the Supreme Court judgment on Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is disappointing. Last week the apex court, while disposing of a clutch of petitions challenging the conduct of SIR in Bihar, has upheld the power of Election Commission to conduct the exercise. It also endorsed the way EC was conducting the exercise. The scope of the petitions was limited to conduct of SIR in Bihar. Thereafter, the EC went ahead and carried it out in more states including West Bengal where it became considerably worse because of addition of ‘logical discrepancy’ criterion in vetting eligibility of the voters. Though the specific issue of this criterion was not before the court, it nevertheless took no objection to it. Instead, in Bengal case the court seemed to make light of the citizens’ right to vote by saying those who are wrongly excluded from the list will...