The Decimation of a University
The University of Delhi has been one of the premier institutions of postsecondary education in India for almost ninety years. Although it is named after the city in which it is located – a city renowned as a seat of…
Weak Foundations
In less than a week, as I write this [July 2013], some 60,000 students would be entering the University of Delhi as undergraduates. These young adults, coming from various regions of the country and with diverse academic and socio-economic backgrounds,…
After the FYUP : Looking Back at the Road Ahead
Now that Delhi University’s controversial Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) has been formally initiated, it is time for its principled critics to look ahead. But charting the course of the future – even the near future – requires us to…
Critiquing Reforms in Higher Education : Understanding the ‘Education Question’ in India
We have not abandoned purely student demands, but the best way to bring the university into question is to intensify the workers’ movement. – Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Jean-Pierre Duteuil, March 22nd Movement, 1968 It was towards the end of 2012…
Academic Freedom and Employability:A Neoliberal Agenda to Guide Education Reform
In the context of the recently introduced Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP) in the University of Delhi for the academic year 2013–14, it has become imperative to make an attempt to analyse critically the rationale behind such a measure which…
‘Academic Reforms’ in Delhi University : A Case Study of Systematic Destruction
No academic restructuring in Delhi University (DU) has left the largest section of its teachers feeling as embittered, alienated and worried as the Four Year Undergraduate Programme (FYUP). Teachers thronged the Special General Body Meeting of the Delhi University Teachers’…
On the Political Economy of Educational ‘Reforms’
The educational ‘reforms’ we are witnessing today in India are usually attributed to the changing requirements of the economic system. This is no doubt true, but in addition they are also meant to serve the needs of the new ‘Ideological…
OBITUARY: K.S. Krishnaswamy
K.S. Krishnaswamy who passed away in June this year [2013] was an outstanding economist who, along with his contemporaries I.G. Patel and K.N. Raj, formed the core of the group of economists that succeeded the earlier trio of V.K.R.V. Rao,…
Editorial Note, May-Jun, 2013
Kunwar Muhammad Ashraf was an outstanding Marxist intellectual who died in 1962. An active participant in the anti-colonial struggle, he was a member of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), and served as Secretary to both Maulana Azad and Jawaharlal…
Questionings within Religious Thought : The Experience of Islam
As we see religions now, they appear to be organised systems of belief and practice, with an emphasis on some form of afterlife. In general, they claim to derive their authority from what their followers hold to be texts or…