Postcolonial democratic deepening brings new challenges to religion as a social imaginary in India. Increasing cultural differentiation and pluralisation are countered by fundamentalisation, but also challenge existing minority/​multicultural imaginations. Religion, as the overarching identity category, has come under scrutiny given the politicization of caste among Muslims, who form the country’s most significant religious minority. Through social-justice and anti-caste politics in the 1990s, lowered-caste Muslims started to enact a new identity named Pasmanda, which means ​“those who have been left behind”. The Pasmanda discourse emphasises internal heterogeneities and hegemonies and pluralises the ​“Muslim”. It thus ruptures the imaginary of Muslims as a homogeneous minority in a culturally diverse country and problematises the majority – minority framework. An important site of contestation is the reservation (quota) policy in public employment, education, and the legislature. While privileged-caste Muslims generally prefer a quota based on religion, the lowered-caste Pasmanda Muslims increasingly mobilise for a caste-based quota, thus challenging systems of recognition and redistribution.

Increasing community and parental connection with schools is a widely advocated means of improving levels of student learning and the quality and accountability of education systems across South Asia. This paper draws on a mixed-methods study of accountability relations in education in the Indian states of Rajasthan and Bihar. It explores two questions: what formal platforms exist to enhance connections between socially disadvantaged families and the schools serving them; and (how) do they influence engagement with student learning? It finds that various platforms have proliferated across public, low-cost private and non-government schools. But, while they promote enrolment attendance and monitoring, a substantive focus on student learning is empirically demonstrated to be missing everywhere. The paper argues that an apparently surprising similarity of (dis)connection is located in system features that are common across school types, locations and social structures. It proposes that this is a ​‘field’ in which connection, facilitated by various platforms, is performed according to bureaucratised norms of accountability that even pervade family and community responses. Seeing this as a socially constituted ​‘field’ that constrains meaningful discussion of learning across schooling provision for disadvantaged families contribute new insight for accountability-focused reforms in education.

This chapter discusses collective and multiactor interventions by local communities in Bengaluru, in conserving urban ecological commons — specifically, urban lakes — which provides a range of services to residents, as well as protecting the overall resilience of the city. Bengaluru, which once had an agrarian ecological landscape nourished by a large network of interconnected rainwater harvesting structures — tanks or lakes, has now grown to a megacity. Rapid urbanization has been accompanied by conversion of many of these lakes into other forms of land use, with a decline in the functioning of lakes and their surrounding reliant socio-ecological systems. With the import of piped water to the city since the early 20^th century, lakes lost much of their perceived relevance for policymakers. Waste discharge and sewage eventually polluted most of the lakes and choked the overflow channels that connected lakes along a topographic gradient, reducing the flow of water. In recent years, spurred by a resurgent awareness of the importance of lakes, a growing number of civic and community efforts have resulted in lake restoration, in collaboration with the Government.

What role do ​‘chemical experiences’ play in helping children grasp the particulate nature of matter and use this idea to explain observed phenomena?

How do we use the art and aesthetics of lithography to introduce children to chemical reactions? What skills would children learn from this multisensorial and fun approach to science? 

Why is it important for teachers to trace the history of evolving definitions of elements and atoms, and communicate the conditional nature of their validity? 

Can we use poetry to teach chemistry? How would it change the ways in which students engage with science? 

Join us in exploring these questions in three sections of our latest issue – Our Chemical World, I am a Scientist, and Snippets. 

Does the teaching and learning of science change when we give importance to relationships with people, other beings, and the places they inhabit? 

How do we use an exploration of water to help children connect basic science concepts with personal experiences and pressing environmental issues? 

Can observing, exploring, and working in their natural environment offer children and teachers the opportunity to cultivate an intuitive understanding of the nature and process of science? 

What personal choices and simple actions in our everyday lives can help us begin engaging with climate change? 

Join us in exploring these questions in the theme section of this issue — Teaching as if the Earth Matters.

In ​‘Interactions’ & ​‘Emerging Trends in Biology’, explore articles on chemical ecology, the common cold, fundamental forces, gut microbes in health & disease, & memory. In ​‘The Science Lab’, discover simple classroom activities to teach photosynthesis & daytime astronomy. In ​‘Annals of History’, trace the journey of microscopy from the simple magnifying glass to the powerful electron microscopes & easy-to-assemble foldscopes available today. Discover the writer & physician Oliver Sacks through his fascination for the human brain, bikes and stories in ​‘Biography of a Scientist’. Enjoy our pull-out poster on ​‘Ten things you didn’t know about – Bones’ & nature-based activity sheets – ​‘Chirp Chirp’, ​‘Hibiscus Tales’, ​‘Bark Bites’ & ​‘All about Ants’! Or browse through our pocket-size pictorial guide to common butterflies!