The current controversy around the UGC regulations is meant neither to promote social justice and equity nor hurt the interests of the dominant castes. It’s meant for the two to be at loggerheads and further consolidate their support behind the BJP-RSS combine
Caste hierarchies continue to exist in everyday life and across campuses. Due to the persistence of caste in schools and colleges, long believed to be places for upward mobility and rational thought, these institutions end up becoming spaces where questions of “merit”, cultural capital, language and access—or the lack of thereof—are highlighted and ridiculed. The discrimination persists from Kashmir to Kerala. From delayed degrees and stalled promotions to verbal abuse, professional isolation, and sometimes death, these case studies underscore not isolated instances but a pattern
Despite constitutional guarantees abolishing untouchability and prohibiting caste-based discrimination, caste hierarchies continue to shape everyday life in India’s educational institutions
Without sustained political will Rohith Vemula’s legacy may remain symbolic rather than catalysing structural change in higher education
The uproar over the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026, is a revealing moment in India’s uneasy engagement with caste.
The task before policymakers is not to choose between competing fears, but to design systems that deftly assimilate both.
A close look at reported cases over the past ten years shows that there is no pattern of rampant misuse of the SC/ST Act in universities or higher education institutions
The Supreme Court of India hastily put a stay on the latest gazette notification of the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) Equity norms.
The controversy over the UGC’s regulations has turned a debate over campus equity into a proxy for deeper anxieties about succession and power within the Bharatiya Janata Party
The recent University Grants Commission regulations advocating equity on campuses across the country were rolled back after unprecedented protests by upper caste groups.
Caste hierarchies continue to exist in everyday life and across campuses. Due to the persistence of caste in schools and colleges, long believed to be places for upward mobility and rational thought, these institutions end up becoming spaces where questions of “merit”, cultural capital, language and access—or the lack of thereof—are highlighted and ridiculed. The discrimination persists from Kashmir to Kerala. From delayed degrees and stalled promotions to verbal abuse, professional isolation, and sometimes death, these case studies underscore not isolated instances but a pattern
Despite constitutional guarantees abolishing untouchability and prohibiting caste-based discrimination, caste hierarchies continue to shape everyday life in India’s educational institutions
Without sustained political will Rohith Vemula’s legacy may remain symbolic rather than catalysing structural change in higher education
The uproar over the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026, is a revealing moment in India’s uneasy engagement with caste.
The task before policymakers is not to choose between competing fears, but to design systems that deftly assimilate both.
A close look at reported cases over the past ten years shows that there is no pattern of rampant misuse of the SC/ST Act in universities or higher education institutions
The Supreme Court of India hastily put a stay on the latest gazette notification of the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) Equity norms.
The controversy over the UGC’s regulations has turned a debate over campus equity into a proxy for deeper anxieties about succession and power within the Bharatiya Janata Party
The recent University Grants Commission regulations advocating equity on campuses across the country were rolled back after unprecedented protests by upper caste groups.
The UGC regulations reflect the contradictory reality of Indian society that has defined the post-Independence historical context and remain unresolved to this day
The upper castes believe that the UGC regulations are a death knell to their own existence
While the Nepal elections are broadly turning into an old guard versus Gen-Z battle, the Bangladesh contest remains between old guards
When I meet women in their 30s or 40s, choosing to stay single, I don’t feel an urge to ask ‘why’. I know why, I have lived that ‘why’, that ‘why’ is the continued erasure of a woman’s identity
For many women, dating in their 30s and 40s is defined less by romance than by exhaustion, confusion and a sense of emotional attrition
Cinema has its own kind of celebrity spotting. Some people wait for movie stars; the author waits for writers
