THE National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled (NPRD) strongly condemns the brutal violence perpetrated by the Delhi Police on students and teachers of Jawaharlal Nehru University who were holding a peaceful protest against the massive hike in fees and their right to an affordable and accessible education on November 18.The viciousness of the police is much more atrocious given the fact that even students with disabilities were not spared. A visually impaired student was subjected to indiscriminate beating.

FORMED twelve years ago, the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF), a broad-based organisation, has since carried out many successful struggles and movements, increased its influence over various sections of the society and made quite an impact in the southern state.

THE recent notification of Indian Institute of Management-Ahmadabad(IIM-A) for the PhD programme in management, 2020 is the typical case where there is no provision to implement reservations for historically marginalised social groups. In the official notification, it had no provisions for an SC/ST (Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe) quota. This is in violation of the reservation mandated by the Constitution of India that makes it obligatory for all central educational institutions to reserve seats for each course and branch of study.

THIRD state conference of TNUEF was held on August 15-17 at Thanjavur, in the Cauvery Delta, soil of heroic struggle of poor agricultural labourers against both economic and social oppression, led by P Seenivasa Rao and P S Dhanuskodi.The TNUEF conference ended with mammoth rally on August 17, which was attended by nearly 20,000 people.  Sitaram Yechury, general secretary, CPI M) delivered a special address in the public meeting conducted at Thilagar Thidal. He urged all democratic sections to join the struggle against caste oppression.

THE draft of the New Education Policy(NEP) is profoundly regressive and overwhelmingly undemocratic. It continues to perpetuate the existing discrimination against the disabled. It fails to invoke a rights-based approach and refuses to break away from the traditional method of viewing disability.Despite ‘access’ being claimed to be a key “guiding principle”, non-availability of the draft in accessible formats, deprives large sections of the disabled an opportunity to go through a crucial document that will be shaping their lives and those of disabled children and adolescents.