Sudha Murthy, Shankar Mahadevan on NCERT's 19-member panel to develop new textbooks
New Delhi, Aug 12: Infosys Foundation Chairman Sudha Murthy, music maestro Shankar Mahadevan, economist Sanjeev Sanyal and 16 others are part of a new committee constituted by the NCERT to revise textbooks according to the new curriculum, officials said.
The 19-member National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC) will be headed by National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) chancellor MC Pant and develop textbooks for classes 3 to 12.
The committee is mandated to prepare the textbooks, and other teaching learning materials, which will, in turn, be published and used by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), as per the terms of reference, a senior official said.
"The NSTC will be assisted by Curricular Area Groups (CAGs) in the development of the teaching-learning material for each curricular area. These groups will include appropriate experts for the said subject, and will be formed by the chairperson and the co-Chairperson of NSTC, with the assistance of NCERT," the official said.
The committee will work to align the curriculum with the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE) developed by the K Kasturirangan-led steering committee as a part of the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
While the final NCF-SE has already been submitted to the Union ministry of education, it is yet to be released in the public domain. The draft of the framework was released in April.
The committee is co-chaired by Manjul Bhargav, a professor of mathematics at Princeton University. Its other members include mathematician Sujatha Ramdorai, badminton player U Vimal Kumar, chairperson of Centre for Policy Studies MD Srinivas, and chairperson of Bharatiya Bhasha Samiti Chamu Krishna Shastry.
The dropping of several topics and portions from NCERT textbooks in May triggered a controversy, with the opposition blaming the BJP-led Centre for "whitewashing with vengeance".
At the heart of the controversy was the fact that while the changes made as part of a rationalisation exercise were notified, some of the controversial deletions were not mentioned. This led to allegations about a bid to delete these portions surreptitiously.
Although the NCERT acknowledged that the omissions in the textbooks may have been unintentional, they declined to reverse the deletions.
The NCERT said the removals were made based on the recommendations provided by experts.
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NEET student hangs self in Rajasthan's Sikar
Jaipur (PTI): A student preparing for the NEET examination allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in a rented room in Rajasthan's Sikar on Friday, police said.
According to the police, the student allegedly hanged himself from a ceiling fan using his sister's scarf while one sister was attending coaching classes and the other was in the bathroom.
He had appeared in the NEET UG exam 2026, which was cancelled due to paper leak, they said.
Udyog Nagar SHO Rajesh Kumar said that the deceased, identified as Pradeep Meghwal, was a resident of Kanika ki Dhani village in Jhunjhunu's Gudha Gaudji area.
He had been living in a rented room in Sikar's Jaldhari Nagar area with his two sisters while preparing for NEET over the last three years.
His elder sister later found him hanging and informed the landlord and police after bringing him down, officials said.
The SHO said the body was kept at SK Hospital mortuary, and a postmortem had not been conducted.
The student's father, Rajesh Kumar Meghwal, told police that Pradeep's NEET examination had gone well and the family was expecting him to score around 650 marks.
Former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot expressed grief over the incident and linked it to anxiety among students after reports of irregularities and paper leaks in NEET 2026.
Pilot said repeated paper leak incidents and cancellation of examinations were affecting students' mental health and demanded a time-bound investigation and strict action against those responsible.
