Physical access to schooling and socio-cultural difference between children from scheduled tribes and children from the mainstream are factors responsible for tribal children being deprived of basic education, and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory to Education (RTE) Act, 2009, will not necessarily help the tribal population of the country, reveals a recent study. A study, carried out by S N Tripathi of the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics...

At August 30 meet, it was felt there should be a system of two prices, differential entitlements Since then, NAC Working Group on Food Security has had detailed discussions The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) may be close to finalising the contentious Food Security Bill when it meets here on September 24. Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and officials from Ministries concerned, including Women and Child Development Secretary, will be...

With the work on the socio-economic development in the three Maoist-affected districts in West Bengal gathering pace, the State government said on Tuesday that it would complete by September the distribution of ration cards to poor tribals living there. Home Secretary Samar Ghosh told reporters that stress was on the distribution of ration cards, and the work progressed well. “This is part of the scheme formulated for the three districts within...

The Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council is getting ready with its version of what the proposed land acquisition law and the accompanying rehabilitation and resettlement law should be. The bills are scheduled to be introduced in the winter session of Parliament after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assurance to Rahul Gandhi. A note drafted by advisory council member N.C. Saxena, which was handed over to panel members when they last met in August,...

India has long been simultaneously a country of enormous wealth and desperate poverty. In recent decades, the distance has only grown between those who enjoy living standards comparable to the finest in the world, and the millions left far behind. Even as Indians crowd the lists of the world’s richest dollar billionaires, an estimated 200 million people sleep hungry. Half our children are malnourished and nearly a fifth severely so....