Relative Pro-$\ell$ Completions of Mapping Class Groups
  Fix a prime number ell. In this paper we develop the theory of relative pro-ell completion of discrete and profinite groups -- a natural generalization of the classical notion of pro-ell completion -- and show that the pro-ell completion of the Torelli group does not inject into the relative pro-ell completion of the corresponding mapping class group when the genus is at least 3. As an application, we prove that when g > 2, the action of the pro-ell completion of the Torelli group T_{g,1} on the pro-ell fundamental group of a pointed genus g surface is not faithful.   The choice of a first-order deformation of a maximally degenerate stable curve of genus g determines an action of the absolute Galois group G_Q on the relative pro-ell completion of the corresponding mapping class group. We prove that for all g all such representations are unramified at all primes \neq ell when the first order deformation is suitably chosen. This proof was communicated to us by Mochizuki and Tamagawa. 
Richard Hain, Makoto Matsumoto