The government of India has initiated an ambitious reform of the education system in the country with the National Education Policy 2020. This marks the third education policy post-independence, aimed at ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education for all. The latest policy promises a revamp of the Indian education structure by formalizing pre-primary schooling, promoting multidisciplinary learning, academic freedom, and creating a more comprehensive, liberal, choice-friendly, and job-oriented education system that aligns with global standards. This paper briefly examines the major changes proposed in the policy for primary education and assesses the extent to which the Indian education system can adapt to fulfil the policy recommendations, given the prevailing socio-economic conditions in the country. This study highlights the hindrances to implementing the National Education Policy 2020 in India, including socio-economic challenges, health and digital access issues. It emphasizes the need for political will, investment in infrastructure and teacher capacity building, collaborative efforts, and careful consideration of potential risks to ensure the policy’s success and avoid harm to future generations and society.

This study seeks to argue that the embodied approach to cognition provides a comprehensive theoretical framework to revise some of our educational practices. Any educational activity presupposes some underlying assumption about human nature. Current dominant mainstream educational set-up is based upon disembodied accounts of the human mind, which creates a rift between learners and their environment. It results in exam-oriented and achievement-based learning which is not conducive for the development of critical thinking and exploratory mindset among children. On the other hand, an embodied approach stresses the role of the full body and the rest of the environment in the learning process, and this is of immense relevance to devise better pedagogical practices. In this study, we shall try to explain how embodiment can help reduce the psychological gap between the learner and the environment, thereby making education more integrated and inherently meaningful.

The notion of epistemic injustice has become an important topic of inquiry in recent times. It refers to the injustice committed to a person when her claim to knowledge is not given due consideration. This article argues that there are two major sources of epistemic injustice: One is the dominating tendencies present in us, and the other is susceptibility to cognitive biases and distortions. When societies become more complex, injustice increases and one can see countless instances of epistemic injustice in everyday life. To reduce epistemic injustice, one has to tackle both sources. Increasing cooperative behaviour is the key in this regard which, in turn, may require revisiting the way the self is automatically understood.

For many decades, cognition has been viewed as a computational process in the brain. For cognition, the brain, body and the interaction with the environment are important. Conventional views are inclined towards the existence of discrete and internal representations realised by highly specific mechanisms in the brain. The Embodied approach challenges this view and accepts the evolution of cognitive abilities.  There is a shift in focus from the belief that the brain is solely responsible for cognition to the thought that the body is somehow deeply integrated into cognition. However, it does not deny the central position of the brain in the process of cognition but opens the doors for other factors for integration. At the basic level, there are three ways in which an agent’s body can be utilised for the cognitive process. An agent’s body may help to generate, operate and distribute the cognitive processes. As a result, this approach tries to diminish the monopoly of the brain by taking into account the importance of the body and the environment for cognition.

Invited for the cover of this issue are Sankar Prasad Rath and co‐workers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Kanpur) and the University of Sassari. The image depicts through space interactions in a cofacial AgII porphyrin dimer upon stepwise oxidations, which allow the estimation of the structure and energy characteristics of metallophilic interactions between AgII/AgII (d9/d9), AgIII/AgIII (d8/d8) and also mixed‐valent AgII/AgIII (d9/d8) complexes. Read the full text of the article at 10.1002/chem.201901731.