LUBANA PARVIN WAS sweating profusely on the premises of the Calcutta High Court on April 21. And it was not just the heat wave in Kolkata that troubled her, the 36-year-old said. She was also intensely anxious.
The court was about to announce its verdict in the West Bengal School Service Commission (SSC) recruitment scam. Parvin was among the candidates who, despite being on the merit list, had failed to get a teaching job. She had also joined cause with one of the multiple petitions that the court had clubbed together and was about to declare its judgment on.
When the verdict came, at around 11am, anxious sweat turned into tears of joy. "We finally have justice," said Parvin, a resident of Khidirpur in south Kolkata. The court had nullified the entire panel of teaching and non-teaching staff appointed through the State Level Selection Test in 2016. Parvin said: "We saw candidates who were behind us in the merit list getting jobs. We are hoping that we will soon get those jobs."
The 282-page judgment rendered 25,753 teaching (assistant teacher for class 9-10 and class 11-12) and non-teaching staff (Group C and D clerks) unemployed. This left everyone from lawyers to street vendors wondering if Indian judiciary had ever seen a verdict that impacted so many jobs at once.
The court ordered that a new recruitment process must begin within 15 days of the end of the Lok Sabha elections. It also mandated that those recruited unlawfully must return the full salary they earned with 12 per cent annual interest.
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William Dalrymple goes further back
Indian readers have long known William Dalrymple as the chronicler nonpareil of India in the early years of the British raj. His latest book, The Golden Road, is a striking departure, since it takes him to a period from about the third century BC to the 12th-13th centuries CE.
The bleat from the street
What with all the apps delivering straight to one’s doorstep, the supermarkets, the food halls and even the occasional (super-expensive) pop-up thela (cart) offering the woke from field-to-fork option, the good old veggie-market/mandi has fallen off my regular beat.
Courage and conviction
Justice A.M. Ahmadi's biography by his granddaughter brings out behind-the-scenes tension in the Supreme Court as it dealt with the Babri Masjid demolition case
EPIC ENTERPRISE
Gowri Ramnarayan's translation of Ponniyin Selvan brings a fresh perspective to her grandfather's magnum opus
Upgrade your jeans
If you don’t live in the top four-five northern states of India, winter means little else than a pair of jeans. I live in Mumbai, where only mad people wear jeans throughout the year. High temperatures and extreme levels of humidity ensure we go to work in mulmul salwars, cotton pants, or, if you are lucky like me, wear shorts every day.
Garden by the sea
When Kozhikode beach became a fertile ground for ideas with Manorama Hortus
RECRUITERS SPEAK
Industry requirements and selection criteria of management graduates
MORAL COMPASS
The need to infuse ethics into India's MBA landscape
B-SCHOOLS SHOULD UNDERSTAND THAT INDIAN ECONOMY IS GOING TO WITNESS A TREMENDOUS GROWTH
INTERVIEW - Prof DEBASHIS CHATTERJEE, director, Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode
COURSE CORRECTION
India's best b-schools are navigating tumultuous times. Hurdles include lower salaries offered to their graduates and students misusing AI
