NCERT removes cartoon on coalition govts from Class 12 textbook
says it casts India in ‘negative light’
New Delhi: The National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has made a change to its Class 12 political science textbook by removing a political cartoon that illustrated the challenges and uncertainties faced by coalition governments in India. The decision to remove the cartoon was made as it portrayed the country in a “negative light.”
The cartoon, created by Ravishankar and originally published in India Today magazine, featured images of several Prime Ministers, including V.P. Singh (1990), Chandra Shekhar (1990), P.V. Narasimha Rao (1991), H.D. Deve Gowda (1996), I.K. Gujral (1997), and A.B. Vajpayee (1998). It included a series of questions about the stability of their coalition governments and the state of democracy in India.
According to a report in The Hindu, the illustration has been replaced with two students conversing with each other in speech bubbles. In the new illustration, one student questions, “Does that mean that we will always have coalitions? Or can the national parties consolidate their positions again?” The other student responds, “I am not worried about whether it is a single party or a coalition government. I am more worried about what they do. Does a coalition government involve more compromises? Can we not have bold and imaginative policies in a coalition?”
The document published by the NCERT outlining these changes dates back to April 2024, before the general election and the formation of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) does not hold a majority on its own.
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India is the place for large-scale organic production, says Commerce Secretary
Nuremberg (PTI): India is the place for large-scale organic production and the country is keen to collaborate with the EU to strengthen this ecosystem to cater to rising demands, Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal said here on Tuesday.
Agrawal also said that India's organic products exports have grown threefold over the last 10 years, and the government now aims to triple them again over the next five years.
"India is the place" to serve the world as a good organic food basket, he said, adding that India has 150.3 million hectares of agricultural land under cultivation.
He said that the organic ecosystem is growing very fast in the country, as today, 3 per cent of India's cultivation is organic.
In India, 4.7 million hectares of land is under organic cultivation, with 2.4 million farmers practising it, and it is only increasing by the day, he said.
The Secretary was speaking at the inauguration of Biofach 2026. About 100 exhibitors from 20 Indian states, including Assam, Meghalaya, and Kerala, are here to showcase their organic food products at the world's leading trade fair Biofach show (February 10-13).
He informed that India is emerging as a credible supplier of organic food, both within India and outside.
"I see this happening in a much faster manner. So if world needs the state for organic production, I think India is the place, and we like to work with all of you to see how we can improve the Indian organic food ecosystem to serve both the Indian rising demand within India and also the rising demand in two of our biggest markets," he said.
He called for creating credibility around organic foods. There is a need to ensure trust and credibility around the certification of these products.
India started with the national programme for organic production way back in 2001 and that was designed to adopt the international standards of organic goods.
"And now we are bringing in cooperatives in a big way," he said, adding that cooperatives can bring in and aggregate farmers to create good, viable organic ecosystem in various villages across the country.
