-Hindustan Times A dominant feature of the first year of Narendra Modi's leadership is the quiet dismantling of India's imperfectly realised framework of welfare and rights, covertly, by stealth.   A declared pro-corporate agenda, such as the land acquisition ordinance, proved politically messy and costly. Therefore, the government resorted instead for an enfeebling of the welfare architecture of the country through a combination of fiscal withdrawals, ignoring even legally mandated obligations.   But this attracted...

-The Hindu Business Line It's a huge exercise in collective cleanliness which needs massive funding and human resources. Cosmetics won't work At first glance, the government has not put its money where its mouth is. Just ₹2,625 crore have been provided for the Swachh Bharat Mission in the Budget. This is against ₹4,620 crore in 2014-15 and ₹3,500 crore the year before. The drop is puzzling till one looks at the Budget...

-United Nations Just one third of countries have achieved all the measurable education goals set in 2000 and only half of all countries have achieved universal primary enrolment, the United Nations agency mandated with promoting learning spotlighted today, urging countries to bridge the $22 billion annual finance gap needed to achieve quality basic education for all by 2030. "The world has made tremendous progress towards 'Education for All'...however the agenda is far...

-The Hindu Universal access ensured, but quality remains a challenge India has made remarkable strides towards ensuring education for all, a new global monitoring report shows. While access is now close to universal, the quality of education remains a major challenge, it says. In April 2000, the governments of 164 countries adopted the Dakar Framework to deliver Education For All commitments by 2015. On Thursday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation...

The India Country Report 2015 on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) comes at a time when the Union Budget 2015-16 allegedly cut expenditure on several social sector schemes and programmes. This year's MDG country report says that India will fail to achieve two important targets pertaining to reducing hunger and maternal mortality by 2015, among others. Released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the report says that India is...