New Delhi, March 15 -- The controversy over the now-withdrawn Class 8 social science textbook with a chapter on judicial corruption has highlighted inadequacies of the three-stage process followed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to approve new books that align with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. It also suggests gaps in the functioning of the 19-member apex National Syllabus and Teaching-Learning Material Committee (NSTC), which is expected to sign-off on the new books. HT's reporting shows that the members did not explicitly approve the book, with many ignoring the draft of the text that was sent to them over WhatsApp and e-mail. It also shows that the section on judicial corruption in one of the chapters was explicitly flagged to the committee. The preparation of the new textbooks in line with the National Curriculum Framework- School Education (NCF-SE) 2023 follows a three-stage process. The first stage involves the Textbook Development Team or TDT -- a separate one for each subject in each class. This is made up of experts and forms the core group writing a textbook. P5...