A lot of people think this money is paid for the degree. No it's not. It's an investment, into a social circle where you are almost 95 per cent guaranteed to have success. There is a reason that despite fin aid, Ashoka doesn't have diversity on campus.
NCERT has replaced its earlier panel with a new 20-member team to develop the Class 11 and 12 Political Science textbooks. At least four members have links with the RSS or its affiliates:
• Yadunath Deshpande — Former ABVP Joint State Organising Secretary in Maharashtra and Organising Secretary for the Mumbai-Konkan region. His LinkedIn profile also describes him as a former political consultant to the BJP.
• Dr Prashant Divekar — Heads the Teacher Education Centre & Research Programme at Jnana Prabodhini, Pune. The organisation was founded by RSS pracharak Vinayak Vishwanath (Vivekananda Pendse).
• Prof Vandana Mishra — JNU political science professor and former National Secretary of ABVP.
• Dr Ravi Rameshchandra Shukla — JNU Associate Professor and a member of the editorial board of a journal published by Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini, an RSS-affiliated organisation.
The development has triggered a political controversy, with the Congress accusing the BJP government of “saffronisation” of education. The new panel has also been asked to make Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) and “cultural rootedness” cross-cutting themes in the textbooks.