“Our states have been formed on linguistic basis. So, the concerned state language or mother tongue is supreme. Everyone should understand and respect that.” Basavaraj Bommai, Karnataka chief minister on the controversy about making Hindi the national language (April 23, Times of India) “The party line across the secular universe, is, you can’t afford to be seen close to the Muslims or a Muslim cause. It’s suicidal in today’s electoral politics. Hypocrisy and cowardice in the name of discretion is the better part of secular valour.” Shekhar Gupta, editor The Print, on rising Islamophobia in India (Business Standard, April 23) “And even more than Jawaharlal Nehru, Narendra Modi seeks to be “an overwhelming force by himself”, his desire to build a personality cult around himself aided by the sort of propaganda machine not remotely conceivable in the 1950s.” Historian Ramachandra Guha on the dangers of one-party dominance (April 24, Scroll.in) “There is a kind of rush to send children to schools. Parents want to start as soon as their children are two years old. This may not be conducive to their psychological health. Don’t push the child too much. It may impact his ability to grasp and read.” Supreme Court of India, hearing an appeal by parents challenging the minimum age condition of six years for admission into class I of Kendriya Vidyalayas (April 26, Hindustan Times) “For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally.” Elon Musk, billionaire entrepreneur, after purchasing Twitter for $44 billion (April 28, Twitter) “Due to proliferation of breadth requirements, Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) students will study an extra year and yet emerge with much less knowledge than preceding batches.” Amber Habib, Maths professor at Shiv Nadar University, on UGC’s draft FYUP curriculum (Times of India, May 5)
