Over 4.7 lakh pirated NCERT books seized across India since 2024: Government
He reiterated NCERT's core mission to ensure access to high-quality, affordable educational resources for every student in the country. 'NCERT textbooks are produced on a no-profit, no-loss basis to reach even the last child,' he added.In the past year alone, NCERT has carried out raids on 29 locations suspected of being linked to the illegal production and distribution of pirated books. The raids, which also targeted manufacturers of fake NCERT watermarked paper, led to the seizure of stocks and printing equipment worth over Rs20 crore.To counter the deep-rooted piracy network, the council has implemented several initiatives. These include a 20% price reduction in textbook costs, timely printing schedules, enhanced paper and print quality using modern printing technologies, and expanded availability through e-commerce platforms.NCERT is also exploring technological solutions to fight piracy.In collaboration with IIT Kanpur, a pilot anti-piracy mechanism was tested on one million copies of a Class 6 textbook. The solution is patented and aimed at tracking and preventing the circulation of fake books.Meanwhile, the newly released NCERT Class 8 Social Science textbook, titled Exploring Society: India and Beyond (Part 1), has sparked discussion about omitting key historical figures like Tipu Sultan and Haidar Ali, as well as the Anglo-Mysore Wars, in its chapter on India's colonial period.The textbook covers the era from Vasco da Gama's arrival in the late 1400s up to the 1800s, including the Battle of Plassey and the 1857 uprising, portraying how one of the world's wealthiest lands was systematically impoverished during British rule. The second part of the textbook is expected to be released later this year.(With PTI inputs)- Ends
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
How Astronomer turned a scandal into a marketing win
Calamity strikes businesses in all shapes and forms, but the recent incident involving US-based data operations company Astronomer's ex-CEO Andy Byron and ex-chief people officer Kristin Cabot deserves to be taught as a case study in workplace crisis management at B-Schools around the world. On 18 July, Byron and Cabot, both married to other people, were caught in an intimate embrace on a jumbotron at a concert by the popular British band, Coldplay. The 'mishap", which has by now gone down in the history of scandals as 'Coldplaygate", caused an upheaval all over the internet. In no time, the couple was caught in the eye of a social media blitzkrieg, spawning much mirth, mockery and memes. Byron resigned in a few hours, Cabot followed suit days later. Last heard, Byron is considering suing Chris Martin, the lead vocalist of the band, for the viral 'kiss cam scandal". In the meantime, Astronomer installed one of its co-founders Pete DeJoy as interim CEO, who quickly went into damage control mode by making the right noises. In his first post on LinkedIn since the incident, he praised the integrity and professionalism of his employees in the face of all the attention Astronomer has recently received. 'The events of the past few days have received a level of media attention that few companies—let alone startups in our small corner of the data and AI world—ever encounter," DeJoy wrote. 'The spotlight has been unusual and surreal for our team and, while I would never have wished for it to happen like this, Astronomer is now a household name." It was a textbook move on managing crises in the workplace: start by clearly acknowledging the problem and accessing the extent of the damage. Ironically, Astronomer's reputational troubles proved to be a blessing in disguise because it was caused by poor personal choices of its leaders rather than unscrupulous business decisions. Had it involved a disaster pertaining to the company's services or finances, it would have been much harder for even the best PR machinery to undo. For comparison, think of the 2009 Satyam scandal, when founder-chairman B. Ramalinga Raju confessed to a massive accounting fraud, shaking up India's IT sector as well as global investor confidence, eventually leading to Satyam's dissolution. No Bad Publicity A cursory glance at Google Trends data over the last two weeks validates DeJoy's statement. On 16 July, 'Astronomer" was at -1 in terms of search interests on the engine. On 18 July it hit 100, indicating peak interest. Over the next few days, the levels of public curiosity began to decline, but by that time, the scandal had 'achieved" something unexpected. For a start-up with 300-odd employees based in Ohio that provides a niche service, a sudden spike of public interest was too good an opportunity to pass up. So, Astronomer decided to get advertising maverick Ryan Reynolds to turn the controversy into a cool marketing strategy. Reynolds' company, Maximum Effort, recently released a video featuring actor and entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow, who also happens to be Chris Martin's ex-wife, to diffuse the negative chatter around Astronomer. More leaves taken out of the book of crisis management: formulate a solid strategic response and execute it carefully. Paltrow's video does a masterful job of shifting attention from the speculations about the disgraced leaders at Astronomer. Instead, it focuses on explaining what the company does—which no one who is not working with or in niche tech would have likely known. At the time of writing, the video has over 67,000 likes on Instagram with nearly 85,000 shares. For perspective, the post right before this clip was snapshots of scenes from a meetup in Berlin that Astronomer posted on 9 July. It has 147 likes and 6 shares. The ingenious strategic public response by Astronomer to its recent misfortunes shows that it is possible to counter virality with virality in the age of social media. Instead of shirking from a negative story, the company decided to own the narrative and turn it into a force for positive reinforcement. The move was perfectly timed as well—just as attention on the company was on the wane. Is it possible to police personal interactions in the workplace, especially when people spend more time than ever before with their colleagues on a daily basis rather than at home with their spouses, partners and family? No. But is it still possible to uphold the values that make for a respectful and accountable workplace—especially when all hell breaks loose? Yes. Crisis management lessons need to evolve and keep pace with the times. The idea that no publicity is bad publicity isn't necessarily true. But when life gives you a scandal in the workplace, you might as well try to turn it into a business opportunity. That's the gamble DeJoy and his crisis management team decided to lean on. It's too early to say if it has turned its fortunes around, but at least the unexpected stunt has got Astronomer even more eyeballs than it would have probably got in all of its ten-year-long existence. Work Vibes is a fortnightly column on ideas to help you thrive at what you do.
Hans India
an hour ago
- Hans India
Tipu Sultan water supply remark sparks political row
Bengaluru: Minister for Social Welfare H.C. Mahadevappa has sparked a controversy with his recent remarks crediting Tipu Sultan with an early vision for agricultural water supply infrastructure in the state. The minister, speaking at an event in Srirangapatna, claimed that the 18th-century ruler had planned to supply water for agricultural use and had even laid the foundation stone for the Kannambadi dam, now submerged under the Krishnaraja Sagar (KRS) reservoir. 'The stone still stands at the KRS gate with a Persian inscription dated 1794, found during the dam's construction in 1911,' Mahadevappa said, suggesting that Tipu Sultan may have envisaged an irrigation project more than a century before the KRS dam was built under Maharaja Krishnaraja Wodeyar IV. His remarks have drawn sharp criticism from right-wing groups, particularly the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti. State spokesperson Mohan Gowda called the minister's claims 'laughable,' saying they amounted to historical distortion. 'It is shameful for a responsible minister to mislead the public. He must apologise immediately,' Gowda said in a statement. The group also challenged Mahadevappa's comments portraying Tipu Sultan as a religiously tolerant ruler. Citing alleged historical incidents—including the destruction of temples in Kodagu and Srirangapatna, forced conversions, and language imposition—the Samiti accused Tipu of being a religious bigot. The controversy has revived longstanding debates in Karnataka over the legacy of Tipu Sultan, a historical figure viewed by some as a valiant freedom fighter and by others as a despotic ruler. While political parties in the state have often been divided over his portrayal in textbooks and commemorations, Mahadevappa's latest remarks have once again brought the issue to the forefront of public discourse. The minister is yet to respond to demands for an apology.
Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
From delivering summary justice against landlords to fighting for Jharkhand statehood: political journey of Shibu Soren
Shibu Soren, who passed away on Monday, is widely recognised as the most influential leader of the Jharkhand movement. His radical politics in the 1970s reconceptualised the Jharkhandi identity, giving second wind to the faltering movement for statehood. But in the decades that followed, Soren would choose the path of moderation and compromise, often in the face of criticism, to help make the state of Jharkhand a reality. Here's a brief history. A new mobilisation The early movement for Jharkhand, helmed in the post-Independence years by Jaipal Singh Munda and his Jharkhand Party, ran out of steam by the late 1950s. There were a few fundamental reasons for this. The Jharkhand Party's support base was largely urban, and its leadership was drawn from a relatively small class of educated tribal elite. The conception of a Jharkhand state at this time was solely based on an assertion of adivasi identity and indigeneity that stood against the exploitative 'dikus' (outsiders). British geographer Stuart Corbridge argued that economic differentiation among adivasis and the changing demography of Chhotanagpur following the industrial development of the 20th century (Scheduled Tribes were only 26.21% of the state's population in the 2011 Census) meant that such a narrow conception of Jharkhand was unmaintainable ('Industrialisation, internal colonialism and ethnoregionalism: the Jharkhand, India, 1880-1980, 1987). It was in this context that Soren became an important player. Along with the Bengali Marxist trade unionist A K Roy and Kurmi-Mahato leader Binod Bihari Mahato, the Santal leader formed the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) in late 1972. Its vision was to create a 'red-green movement' that would fundamentally reconceptualise Jharkhandi identity, sociologist Gail Omvedt wrote in 'Ecology and Social Movements'. 'The Jharkhand Mukti Morcha was born with a green and red flag, and with the concrete practice of the alliance that this symbolised — Dhanbad mine workers, lower caste peasants, adivasis. 'Lalkhand-Jharkhand' was the slogan of early marches,' Omvedt wrote in 1984. The question of land The deliberate appeal to non-tribal workers would help the JMM introduce 'new forms of mobilisation around socio economic issues', political scientist Louise Tillin wrote in Remapping India: New States and their Political Origins (2023). 'Land was a major issue for the JMM,' Tillin wrote. 'The Chotanagpur Tenancy Act 1908 had made the sale of tribal lands to non-tribals illegal, but considerable tribal land had changed hands nonetheless.' This created an increasingly alienated peasantry, which was being squeezed further by exploitative moneylenders. 'We must eat all year round. So far, the Santhal has worked for twelve months and starved for twelve months, and the moneylender has reaped the harvest. This must change,' Soren said (quoted in the Economic and Political Weekly article 'Material Base of Santhal Movement', 1975). Even before the JMM came into being, Soren would travel from village to village on his motorcycle, encouraging adivasis and other landless tillers to harvest standing crops on land that was illegally acquired by the 'outsiders'. The so-called dhan katao andolan would peak with the harvests of 1974-75. In the late 1970s, the JMM took a leading role in protests against state forestry policies in Singhbhum, backing the so-called jungle katao andolan in which government-planted teak trees were cut down to reclaim land for cultivation. Soren's challenge to the status quo was often 'violent'. 'The JMM, and Shibu Soren in particular, became known for delivering summary justice against landlords and moneylenders, even holding their own courts,' Tillin wrote. But his charisma and candour made him a cult-like figure among the adivasis. In mainstream politics Till the early 1980s, the demand for statehood was simply a tool for Soren and the JMM to mobilise support for their primary fight. 'Even if Jharkhand does not come into being in my lifetime, why should I be bothered? Our first concern is to chase away the bloodsuckers and help the people lead a respectable, quiet and fraternal life,' he said (quoted in EPW, 'Containing the Jharkhand Movement', 1979). But it was an important tool nonetheless. In a 2007 interview with Tillin, Soren described it as a 'bridging mechanism' between the Marxist social ideals of the JMM and the sphere of reference of the locals. 'I used to tell Roy-ji (A K Roy)… that the people in Jharkhand understand the language of Birsa Munda, Tilka Manjhi, Sidhu and Kanhu Murmu and Shekh Bhikhari (leaders of 18th and 19th century revolts). They don't understand the language of Lenin. People here have a right to land, forest and water,' he told Tillin (quoted in Remapping India). After he was elected to Lok Sabha in 1980, however, Soren is said to have struck a deal with Indira Gandhi in exchange for immunity for his activities in the 1970s, which significantly tempered his politics. From a tool to galvanise support, statehood became the primary end of JMM's politics. In 1983, the JMM dropped the red from its flag. For the next two decades, Soren championed the cause of a Jharkhand state in Parliament. Along with a number of other players who entered the political scene in the 1980s — most notably the BJP, which supported the creation of Jharkhand but for very different reasons — the JMM helped build mainstream political consensus on statehood by taking the path of moderation, often in the face of criticism from the ground. Jharkhand officially became a state on November 15, 2000.
