Delete NCERT cartoons showing bureaucrats in “incorrect way”: Panel

THE cartoons showing bureaucrats in an “incorrect way” are likely to be deleted from school textbooks after a six-member panel headed by SK Thorat identified a few cartoons in social sciences textbooks of the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) as inappropriate.
The panel recommended among others the deletion of a Surendra cartoon allegedly showing bureaucrats blocking the…
Right To Information (RTI). According to the majority of the panel, it is “not a correct interpretation” of the role of bureaucracy.
However, there was a dissenting voice within the panel. One of its members MSS Pandian did not find anything objectionable in the school books. He issued a dissenting note in the 40-page report.
The panel had reviewed 200 cartoons. The Thorat panel was constituted after an uproar in Parliament over a cartoon that was allegedly disrespectful of BR Ambedkar.

Desh Deepak Verma is new Parliamentary Affairs secretary
Desh Deepak Verma, a 1978 batch UP cadre IAS, has been appointed as secretary in the ministry of Parliamentary Affairs in place of S Chandrashekaran who had retired. Verma is presently Director General, Sports Authority of India under the ministry of youth affairs and sports.

Action and Appointments
a) EK Bharat Bhusan gets extension of additional charge of the post of Director General, Directorate General of Civil Aviation for a further period of one year with effect from December 1, 2011 or till the appointment of a regular incumbent. Bhusan is additional secretary and financial adviser in the ministry of civil aviation. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has also observed that the appointment of a regular person to the post of DGCA was held up for too long a period of time and that the post should be filled up without loss of any further time.