“We have known for years that our education system is failing. Yet, there has been no big bang policy shift, very little sustained media scrutiny and indeed no parent uprising. Why does the bleak future of our young people not stoke our collective outrage? Politicians do not win elections, or bureaucrats get promotions on an education platform.” Anustup Nayak, vice-president, XSEED, on India’s failing education system (Times of India, April 3) “Patrick Geddes, the sociologist, biologist and polymath, designed one version of the ‘University of Benares’. Watching the outline unfold, people asked him out of curiosity where the administrative department was? He pointed to a little outhouse on the side and warned that if it got bigger, it would swallow the university. The prescient Geddes was warning against the bureaucratisation of the intellect and its great institution, the university. Today, sadly it is the bureaucracy that is defining the university, even dictating what autonomy means for us.” Shiv Visvanathan, well-known sociologist in an essay ‘An act of unlearning’ (The Hindu, April 5) “This open display of support for rape suspects is unprecedented, with the Hindu Ekta Manch, supported by members of the BJP, marching with the national flag demanding justice for the accused and lawyers physically trying to prevent the police from filing the charge sheet.” Editorial on the recent rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in Kathua, Kashmir (Economic & Political Weekly, April 14) “The Europeans and the Americans may claim that it is theirs, but it is actually our technology. Internet has been present in India for over lakhs of years.” Biplab Deb, chief minister of Tripura, at a public function in Agartala (April 17) “The duty of this generation is to stop the drift towards the Republic of Impunity.” P. Chidambaram, former Union minister, on the recent upsurge in sex crimes against women and children (The Indian Express, April 22)
