🚨SCOOP: Modi govt has QUIETLY made last-minute changes in the new social science textbooks which hit market recently.

These controversial tweaks were LEFT OUT of #NCERT's official announcement on "rationalised content" last year.

Details in 🧵
(1/n)
indianexpress.com/article/educat… The most glaring 👀of them are the deletions pertaining to Mahatma Gandhi's assassination

DELETED 👉: Ban imposed on the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) by the union govt after Gandhi's death dropped from Class Political Science textbook

(see pic for deleted sentences)
(2/n)

Not sure why everyone is suddenly outraging over deletions pertaining to Mughal rulers from NCERT textbooks that happened a year ago! 🥴

Anyhoo, using this opportunity to re-plug our investigation from June 2022 detailing ALL deletions from NCERT's social science textbooks
(1/4) The 1st part of the series focused on changes made (in NCERT textbooks) to content related to contemporary India The most significant of them was deletion of references to the Gujarat riots.

You can read Part 1 here: indianexpress.com/article/expres…
(2/4)

Remember the Institutions of Eminence (IOE) scheme & the political firestorm over Jio Institute's selection?

5 yrs on, @IndianExpress decided to check on Modi govt's promise of autonomy & global standards for 20 institutions of higher learning.

Here's what we found:
🧵 (1/n) We investigated official records, visited IOE campuses across country & interviewed university personnel & govt officials to find a sharp divide between public & private institutions selected for the 'eminence' status — and a❓mark on the future of the IOE scheme itself

(2/n)

In the last part of our investigation on NCERT textbooks, we look at the key people involved in drafting the new school curriculum

@Sourav_RB found the govt has appointed 24 people with RSS links to the committees working on curriculum changes!

#Thread
indianexpress.com/article/expres… First, a little context:

The govt is currently drafting a new curriculum doc (aka National School Curriculum or NCF). The exercise is being led by a 12-member panel headed by former ISRO head K Kasturirangan

The new NCF will be the FOUNDATION for new NCERT textbooks.

(2/n)

The ruling establishment's view that our history glorifies invaders at the cost of other kings has found an echo in how school textbooks have been reworked.

Content on Islamic rulers in NCERT textbooks 📚has suffered the deepest cuts!
#Thread 👇
indianexpress.com/article/expres… In the penultimate part of the investigation, @IndianExpress takes you through the deletions related to Muslim rulers.

We found that most of such changes have been made in ONE textbook. Before we jump into that, there's something we'd like you to show you.. (contd)
(2/n)

In the penultimate part of the investigation, @IndianExpress takes you through the deletions related to Muslim rulers.

We found that most of such changes have been made in ONE textbook. Before we jump into that, there's something we'd like you to show you.. (contd)
(2/n) ... the NCERT, curiously, replaced a table on changes in the Class 7 history with a new one (on its website) this week.

The new table doesn't reflect at least three deletions pertaining to Islamic rulers in the Class 7 history textbook ‘Our Past – II’.
(3/n)

DELETED: "A Dalit is likely to be confined to.. scavenging..."

"..women & shudras not allowed to study Vedas"

The 2nd part of our investigation on the revised school textbooks 📚 focuses on the key deletions on caste, discrimination & minorities
🧵 (1/n)
indianexpress.com/article/expres… .@IndianExpress scrutinised 21 history, pol science & sociology textbooks for Classes 6 to 12 to find that deletions included several examples of discrimination faced by lower castes & minorities, which were introduced in 2007 to “build a sense of a just society”.

(2/n)

Modi govt has carried out the most SWEEPING changes (yet) in school textbooks 📚 since it came to power in 2014!
Starting today, @IndianExpress will take you through the GLARING deletions in NCERT's history, pol science & sociology textbooks for Classes 6 to 12.
#Thread (1/n) 👉The first part of our investigation (out today) focuses on changes made to the content related to contemporary India 🇮🇳

👉The most significant of them is the deletion of references to the 2002 Gujarat riots from TWO ✌️textbooks.

(2/n)

Latest edition of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) released today. The report is significant since it maps changes in school education in rural India since the Covid19 pandemic struck.

Thread🧵on findings:
(1/N)
@IndianExpress 🚨Big change noticed in the school enrollment pattern. Proportion of students studying in govt schools increased from 64.3% in 2018 (pre-pandemic) to 70.3% in 2021. Increase noticed across all grades.

In the pre-pandemic yrs, govt school enrollment had been steady.
(2/n)

More on the events leading up to Pratap Bhanu Mehta quitting Ashoka University 👇🏽

1. Ashoka’s founders, including Ashish Dhawan & Pramath Raj Sinha, had met Mehta recently & are said to have referred to the “current political environment” to suggest that he should leave
#Thread 2. That meeting with the founders was held without Vice-Chancellor Malabika Sarkar, and so breached established norms under which founders, respecting the university’s autonomy, didn’t deal with a faculty member over the V-C’s head

Deeply honoured to win the International Press Institute-India Award 2020. It recognises my coverage of the LS Polls 2019 revealing the divide within the Election Commission in its response to complaints alleging poll code violations by PM Narendra Modi & Amit Shah
#Thread My first newsbreak (on 30.04.19) in @IndianExpress during the general elections highlighted how the EC took unusually long to discuss and decide complaints against the incumbent Prime Minister

indianexpress.com/elections/elec…
(2/n)

By & large, past Board toppers have good lives. But looking back, many feel school education did not provide the foundation it claims to deliver. 

We conclude our series (Tracking India's Toppers 🎓👩‍🎓) by asking what they think of school several yrs after graduation
🧵 (1/n) When Shreyas Sudhaman, 22, the 2014 ICSE topper, went abroad for his undergraduate education in chemical engineering at Cockrell School of Engineering, University of Texas, Austin, he realised that school hadn’t quite equipped him with some key skills 👇👇
(2/n)

On paper, no student in India is better positioned to excel in life than the national toppers of Board exams. But even within this group, there are gender differences.

For the 2nd part of our deep dive ('Tracking India's Toppers), we focus on the women toppers 👩‍🎓🥇

🧵(1/n) These women may not have shattered the glass ceiling at their workplace yet but, they are well on their way there. And yet, as our four-month investigation of 86 national school Board toppers — 51 men and 35 women — from 1996 to 2015 shows, their gender does matter.

(2/n)

At a time when varsity cut-offs have hit 100, @IndianExpress tracked down a generation of Board exam toppers between 1996 & 2015 to find out the consequences of a convention that celebrates a few students every yr. 

Our 3-part deep dive: Tracking India's Toppers 👨‍🎓🥇

🧵(1/n) Each is a story of talent, effort & achievement. But taken together, the arcs of their lives & careers tell the story of a generation coming of age in a liberalised India. Of how some aspirations endure & some don’t; how some divides crumbled & some stay intractable.
(2/n)