Mahesh Vijapurkar
Read biographyMahesh Vijapurkar likes to take a worm’s eye-view of issues – that is, from the common man’s perspective. He was a journalist with The Indian Express and then The Hindu and now potters around with human development and urban issues.
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Kicking the book out of syllabus: blame it on Sonia
Don’t blame Kapil Sibal, even Pranab Mukherjee, for the great act of absolute censorship of the NCERT textbook, Indian Constitution at Work. They had only come close to agreeing to first drop the ‘offending’ cartoon, and then the chapter itself, and even render it cartoon-free. The honours for getting the #Kapil Sibal #Katherine Mayo #Pranab Mukherjee #Salman Rushdie #Sonia Gandhi #Subhas Chandra Bose #ThatsJustWrong
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Symbolism vs substance: Why Dalit politics is about icons
Ask Ramdas Athavale, the most visible Dalit leader who runs a Maharashtra-based political party, the Republican Party of India (Athavale) if he would consider converting the 12-acre Indu Mill land into a huge complex for Dalit students instead of a memorial, the kind behen Mayawati built across Uttar Pradesh. Chances are #AmbedkarCartoon #B. R. Ambedkar #Dalit #Mayawati
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Ambedkar cartoon: Members are thin-skinned , not sensitive
Bal Thackeray, if you have heard him at any public meeting, is not exactly a very cogent speaker, leave alone a great orator. There are no flourishes, nor literary gems. He just gets his points of view, loaded with irreverence, even double entendres, across. He speaks the language of cartoonists. #Ambedkar #B. R. Ambedkar #Babasaheb Ambedkar #Bal Thackeray #Dalit #InMyOpinion #Shankar Pillay
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Time Maharashtra bares all on PDS
It is a riddle, really. Why did the Maharashtra government refuse close to a million metric tonnes of food grains allocated to it in January this year? And, then ask the Centre for two lakh metric tonnes of it to meet, what it says, acute scarcity conditions? Scarcity essentially of water #Maharashtra #P. Sainath #PDS #ToWhatEffect
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Maharashtra: Bad schools don’t want to turn good
It is axiomatic. Good education flows from good schools and such schools have competent teachers on its roster. The students attend school regularly and so do the teachers who first teach them to write, read and do the sums. Then the teachers elevate the child from the simple to the #Education #Jyotiba Phule #Maharashtra #Maharashtra Times #NewsTracker #Savitribai
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Good civic body move exposes flip side of city water supply
Something to cheer about, you could say; the Thane Municipal Corporation has decided that students and teachers in its 130 schools should get safe drinking water. So, water purifiers were bought and installed at a cost of Rs 14 lakh. Since mostly the poor go to civic schools, it was indeed #HowThisWorks #RO #safe drinking water #Thane Municipal Corporation
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Maha shuts bogus schools: Is it ready for a fightback?
Seldom has the Maharashtra government taken such a drastic decision with such widespread impact: close down some 2,700 schools across the state, which had bogus students on their rolls, and sack 1,500 teachers from such schools because that was a fraud eating away round Rs 1,000 cr per annum. It disregarded #bogus schools #Maharashtra #Rajendra Darda #ToWhatEffect
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Unequal Mumbai: Now, loos for your pet dog!
Mumbai is likely to get toilets for dogs. The above development comes in the wake of a civic official telling Saamana, the Shiv Sena mouthpiece, that it was the best way to deal with the menace of dog poo on the streets and sidewalks. What is disappointing though is their shortlist for #Civic body #Dog toilets #Mumbai #this indian life
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Dissolve Thane Municipality! Here’s why Cong won’t do it
The Thane Municipal Corporation – the civic body of the second biggest city in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region by population – does not deserve to continue anymore, and the State Government should opt for its supersession, as it is not inclined to perform its civic duties. It is instead, engaged #HowThisWorks #Maharashtra #Nationalist Congress Party #Shiv Sena #Thane #Thane Municipal Corporation
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Mumbai trains are bad? Buses and roads are worse!
The just-ended midweek in Mumbai has revealed just how delicately poised the rail commute system is, precariously perched on a razor’s edge between its daily chaotic running and a disastrous situation. There are other aspects to travel across the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) - geographically Mumbai is only a tenth of #bus services #ConnectTheDots #Kurla station #Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation #Mumbai #Navi Mumbai #Transport in Mumbai