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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4 held for sexually assaulting woman, girl on moving bus after social media alert in UP's Agra
Agra (UP) (PTI): Four people were arrested, after a prompt response by police following a social media alert, for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman and a girl inside a moving bus here, officials said on Tuesday.
According to an official police statement, at 12:27 am on April 27, information was received on the social media platform X about an incident of sexual assault on a bus travelling from Kanpur to Ahmedabad, which was approaching Namner crossing in Agra.
Acting under the direction of Police Commissioner Deepak Kumar, the Agra Police social media team immediately alerted the Rakabganj police station within minutes and coordinated with the victims to confirm the incident and obtain the exact location, it stated.
Police teams launched intensive checking at Namner crossing and intercepted the bus as it reached the spot. The four accused involved in the incident were apprehended on the spot, and legal action was initiated against them, the statement said.
The police said the swift response and coordination between the social media team and field units ensured timely action, bringing relief to the victims and other passengers, who expressed gratitude towards the police, it added.
