BALA PANCHANATHAN Caste is an unwritten compendium of rigid social structures that includes a network of hierarchies, segmentation and segregation (Ghurye 1969 in Bharathi et al 2019). It is beyond a social evil in India— it is a state of mind and a way of life. Spatial segregation and discrimination have been basic aspects of…
Soliloquies of Collectives: Community-led mobilization in Urban Slums of Bengaluru
ANSHUL RAI SHARMA Hagiographies of local action have become commonplace in post-COVID mobilization studies (Laochankham, 2021). They focus on how the local actors can serve the needs of people, more importantly, the needs of the crisis moment in places where the welfare services of the State are ineffective or absent. These have failed in two ways: in…
NEP 2020: Shaping School Curriculum
MOHAMMED MUSHKOH RAMISH Education is integral to an individual’s self-development. Unsurprisingly, the quality and accessibility of education in a country has long been a metric by which its governments are judged. Therefore, the pedagogy used in teaching, the content of curriculum assigned in schools and the quality of textbooks provided to students, among other things,…
Neglecting Van-Gujjars in the name of Tiger Reserve
SHUBHAMA SINGH In June 2020, a proposal was forwarded by District Magistrate to Government of Uttar Pradesh to declare the Tiger Reserve in the Shivalik forest range in Western Uttar Pradesh. If approved, this would be the fourth Tiger Reserve in the state. The proposed Tiger Reserve would be located in the foothills of the…
Conserving Coastal Commons through Panchayati Raj Institutions
Mohammed Mushkoh Ramish Commons are typically understood to be resources or spaces that are open and accessible to all members of a community. Unlike private property which is characterised by individual ownership, rent and exclusivity of use, commons are communally “owned” and governed by communities that have traditionally used them. Fields, pastures, and ponds, as…