-ThePrint.in In many schools of Bhopal, students are being put in classes based on the language they choose to study, but that has other consequences. Nazia Erum explains in this excerpt from her book ‘Mothering A Muslim’. Sanskrit is offered across most of India as an elective third language. Students can opt for it or a regional language or a foreign language. When it’s time for the elective language class, the students...

-Down to Earth Death of cotton farmers due to pesticide poisoning in the Vidarbha region raises vital questions about the government's attitude towards regulation of toxic pesticides One more evil has reared its ugly head in Maharashtra’s arid Vidarbha region, which has so far been infamous for farmer suicides. Some 35 farmers in the region have died of pesticide poisoning in last four months. Most of them were working in cotton and...

-The Hindu Business Line After decades of neglect, Delhi’s government schools are finally turning the page with much-needed improvements to facilities and teaching methods. But problems such as staff shortage and a broken primary education system refuse to go away easily Delhi’s bustling IP Extension has a familiar skyline — a linear arrangement of ageing residential complexes. A gleaming new building in their midst catches the eye. Until recently, the Rajkiya Sarvodaya...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com At a recent interaction with a large group of colleagues in a regional meeting, one relatively junior member who visits schools daily as part of his training schedule was very disturbed with his experiences in a school. He did not like the way teachers were treated by senior functionaries when they visited the school. The functionaries did not empathise with several situations that the teachers faced in the school —...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Tens of thousands of would-be schoolteachers have been left in the lurch with the Central Teacher Eligibility Test, usually held twice a year, not being conducted at all this year because of a pending guidelines revision. Although the states too hold their own Teacher Eligibility Tests, it's the central test alone that facilitates the selection of elementary teachers at central schools such as the Kendriya and Navodaya Vidyalayas...