Channel CSR funds for rural education and skill development, Lanka Dinakar urges Union Education Minister
In a letter personally handed over to the Minister in New Delhi on Tuesday, Mr. Dinakar referred to recent remarks by RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat advocating the use of CSR resources for affordable healthcare and quality education.
He noted that while the Centre has made significant strides through flagship schemes such as PM SHRI Schools and the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, there remains vast untapped potential to utilise CSR funding, especially in rural and aspirational districts, to bridge gaps in educational access and quality.
Mr. Dinakar suggested that CSR support could help modernise classrooms and school infrastructure, enhance access to digital learning tools, improve internet connectivity in remote areas, establish vocational training centres for employable skills, and provide scholarships to meritorious students from disadvantaged backgrounds. He also stressed that such initiatives should be in line with the National Education Policy (NEP), blending moral and cultural values with technological advancement, and promoting the principles of Sanatana Dharma alongside innovation-driven education.
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It has demanded that such detentions be stopped altogether and urged the courts to intervene to halt what it sees as a violation of constitutional rights. They said the May 2 directive is part of a broader assault on citizenship and the rights of working people, particularly Muslims and non-Hindi-speaking communities. It linked the Gurugram crackdown to other measures such as the verification drive in Assam, sudden voter roll revisions in Bihar, forced evictions, imposition of Hindi and the institutionalisation of Islamophobia through laws and media narratives. Legal scholar Mohsin Alam Bhat, who recently released a report titled 'Unmaking Citizens: Architecture of Rights Violations and Exclusion in India's Citizenship Trials' which argues that India's citizenship tribunals have transformed into instruments of exclusion, told The Wire in an interview this month that the detentions outside Assam – including in Gurugram and NCR – are worse than Assam. 'There is no process here,' he said. 'This is a system built on distrust and suspicion. A police official sitting in Haryana can decide who's an Indian just by looking at their faces or hearing them speak.' The Trinamool Congress has accused the Union government of evading questions on the detentions. The party alleged that the Union home ministry under Amit Shah had earlier directed BJP-ruled states to profile Bengali speakers, brand them as 'Bangladeshis' and push them out, making the Union government equally accountable for the harassment, detention and deportation of innocent workers. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
