The National Syllabus and Teaching Learning Material Committee (NSTC), which overlooks the formulation of new textbooks, has been reconstituted by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), following Supreme Court’s intervention on a section of “corruption in the judiciary,” in the now discontinued Class 8 social science textbook.
In an April 2 notification, accessed by The Hindu, the NCERT stated that it had reconstituted the 22-member high power committee, which now includes IIT Madras Director V. Kamakoti; and Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) Chairman Raghuvendra Tanwar; R. Venkata Rao, former Vice-Chancellor of the National Law School of India University (NLSIU); and Amarendra Prasad Behera, Joint Director-in-Charge, Central Institute of Educational Technology, NCERT. The committee now consists of 20 members
A textbook, criticism, the Court and contempt
Three members — Michel Danino, former guest professor at IIT Gandhinagar; M.D. Srinivas, chairman of the Centre for Policy Studies, Chennai and the late Bibek Debroy, former chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC), have been removed from the NSTC.
Mr. Danino’s removal from the NSTC comes after the apex court’s order stating that the Centre, States, union territories, universities, and public institutions should dissociate from three members of the textbook development team who drafted the Class 8 social science textbook chapter on the judiciary under question.
