Arrest of activists and intellectuals condemned

‘Arrests are politically motivated’

Vartha Bharati | 28-08-2018 | 20:05:00 IST

New Delhi, August 28: Social activists, journalists, film makers, JNU Students Union, publishers and MLA Jignesh Mevani strongly condemned the raids on the homes of social activists and intellectuals who are critical of the government and the ruling party at the centre.

In a statement, they said that the arrests of prominent personalities like Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Gautam Navlakha, Varavara Rao, Arun Ferreira, Kranthi Tekula and others were nothing but an attempt to strike terror among those who are fighting for the justice for the marginalized. It was also an attempt by the BJP to invent a false enemy and engage in scaremongering to polarize the 2019 Lok Sabha election in its favour. Already, the government and the media houses close to the BJP have been trying to create a false narrative of Maoist conspiracy since June 2018. The government had invented a term ‘urban naxals’ to stifle any criticism of the government. “We have learnt that the Delhi Police, after arresting Sudha Bharadwaj, waited for Republic TV to arrive before taking her to the court. This simply shows that the arrests are incomplete without the accompanying sensationalist media propaganda to demonise activists, human rights activists and intellectuals”, they said.

The raids carried out on the houses of those activists were aimed at creating a spectacle as the writings and views of those intellectuals were already publicly known and well documented. It was a conspiracy to divert the attention from the gravity of the Sanatan Sanstha conspiracy to carry out serial bomb attacks on Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi. The same Sanatan Sanstha was involved in the murder of Gauri Lankesh as per the SIT investigation. The arrests were carried out to shield the murderers of Gauri Lankesh. People like Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha and others who have been arrested are friends of the people who have dedicated their entire lives to the betterment of the society. With the arrest, the BJP was exposing its insecurities and its intolerance to any dissent or criticism of its policies, they said.

The arrests should be seen in continuation with the recent attacks on pro-justice voices like Swami Agnivesh, Umar Khalid and many other student activists from Delhi to Lucknow. A BJP lawmaker from Karnataka even advocated the murder of “intellectuals.” Both the arrests and the physical attacks on justice loving people must be seen in a series of attempts to stifle dissent and deny social justice. So, the government should release all the arrested activists and intellectuals immediately and drop all false and malicious charges against them as those arrests were politically motivated, they said.

JNU Students’ Union former president Mohit Pandey, former vice president Shehla Rashid Shora, journalist and author Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, journalist Neha Dixit, Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani, human rights activist Sanam Sutirth Wazir, documentary filmmaker Nakul Singh Sawhney, journalist and social activist Teesta Setalvad, equal rights activist Harish Iyer, social activist Swami Agnivesh, Shashi Sail of National Alliance of Women and others signed the petition.

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NCERT revamps curriculum committee after SC rap over Class 8 textbook

08-04-2026 ¦ 08-04-2026 IST

Image Credit: AI

New Delhi (PTI): The NCERT has reconstituted its curriculum committee after being rapped by the Supreme Court over a section on "Corruption in Judiciary" in the now-withdrawn Class 8 Social Science textbook, officials said on Wednesday.

The high-powered, 20-member National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC) of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) includes IIT Madras Director V Kamakoti; Indian Council of Historical Research Chairman Raghuvendra Tanwar; former Vice-Chancellor of the National Law School of India University R Venkata Rao; and Amarendra Prasad Behera, Joint Director-in-Charge, Central Institute of Educational Technology, NCERT.

Earlier, the panel had 22 members.

Following Supreme Court orders, three members have been removed from the NSTC. These are Michel Danino, former guest professor at IIT Gandhinagar; M D Srinivas, chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai; and the late Bibek Debroy, former chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council.

"Reconstitution of NSTC has been undertaken to strengthen it through necessary updates," a senior official said.

The committee is empowered to develop school syllabi and teaching-learning material, including textbooks for Grades 3 to 12, and if required, to appropriately revise the existing textbooks of Grades 1 and 2 to ensure a smooth transition from Grade 2 to 3.

In February, the Supreme Court had taken up suo motu cognisance of the Class 8 Social Science textbook, which discussed a section on "Corruption in Judiciary".

The court later imposed a "blanket ban" on the use of physical or online copies of the said textbook.