A six-member panel appointed by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal to examine the content of NCERT senior secondary textbooks has recommended that more than 10 "inappropriate" cartoons should be deleted, cartoon captions with negative implications should be changed and, in some cases, even the text modified. The changes will come into effect in the current academic session, highly placed sources said.

Besides the cartoons, questions asked through Chunni and Munni  two cartoon characters used as pedagogical tools in the texts  too have been termed offensive. The committee, headed by ICSSR chairman S K Thorat, has recommended removal or modification of several questions.

The committee's report has been submitted to NCERT director Parvin Sinclair and Sibal. It has asked NCERT to order a thorough review of all its texts, and to evolve specific guidelines on the use of cartoons, many of which, it has said, are irrelevant and randomly selected.

MPs last month demanded the removal of allegedly "offensive" cartoons that they said "denigrated" politicians, "poisoned" young minds and "endangered" democracy. Sibal then set up the panel to review social science and political science texts for classes 9 to 12 to identify "educationally inappropriate material".

Panel members have, however, agreed that the texts are among the best, with high educational value, and convey forcefully the message of social inclusion alongside political realities like corruption and electoral malpractices.

The panel scrutinised some 2,500 cartoons, for which they also engaged three cartoonists, all of whom chose to be anonymous. The panel is believed to have received over 70 emails and memoranda from activists, academics and the general public.

The panel included Patricia Mukhim, editor of Shillong Times, social science researcher MSS Pandian, Professor Amarjit S Narang of IGNOU and Abha Malik of Sanskriti School besides Thorat, who is an expert in Dalit studies.

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