Counterview

By A Representative   The Constitutional Conduct Group (CCG), a non-partisan collective of former civil servants from the All India and Central Services, has issued an open letter demanding accountability from Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over what it described as repeated failures in the conduct of national-level examinations.

By Rajkumar Sinha*  The politics of West Bengal has always been known for intense political battles and dramatic developments. In 1998, Mamata Banerjee herself rebelled against the Congress to establish the Trinamool Congress (TMC). Today, in a striking historical parallel, the party is facing a rebellion from within, with dissident leaders claiming to represent the “real TMC.”

By Dr P.K. Gupta  Medical admissions through NEET began in 2013, championed by Hindi-speaking states at a time when private medical colleges in those regions were still few. That landscape has since transformed beyond recognition. The exponential multiplication of both private and government medical colleges across northern India has hollowed out whatever rationale once existed for a single centralized test. What remains is a system that serves not merit but money.

By Sandeep Pandey*  The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) paper leak controversy shows no signs of fading. To make matters worse, the Central Board of Secondary Education's (CBSE) On-Screen Marking (OSM) system recently encountered serious problems, while the Common University Entrance Test (CUET), conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA), had to be reconducted for 3,765 candidates because of technical glitches. The NTA was already under scrutiny due to the NEET paper leak controversy. Following the OSM fiasco, CBSE took over the re-evaluation exercise from the private agency COEMPT Eduteck.

By Harsh Thakor*  Cao Zhenglu occupies a distinctive position in contemporary Chinese literature as a writer whose work persistently engages with the social transformations brought about by market reforms. His fiction foregrounds the lived experiences of laid‑off state workers, migrant labourers, and other groups affected by the restructuring of China’s economy, and it does so through a realist mode attentive to the pressures shaping working‑class life. 

By Vijay Prashad  There are moments in history when words lose their meaning. Not because dictionaries are rewritten, nor because language itself changes, but because political power empties words of the realities they once described. The word ceasefire has increasingly acquired this desolate quality when used by Israeli and US officials. What was once understood to mean the suspension of violence, the silencing of guns, and the creation of political space for peace has become something else entirely: a managerial term for the continuation of war by other means.