-Frontline.in A DETAILED report brought out recently by the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s Pratichi Institute, titled “Primary Education in West Bengal: The Scope for Change”, highlights certain major problems that are coming in the way of the proper functioning of the primary education system in the State. While acknowledging that access to primary education has increased significantly and that there has Been a perceptible improvement in the pupil-teacher ratio (PTR), the...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Poor implementation of welfare schemes by the Delhi government allowed for conditions in which three sisters - Mansi, 8, Shikha, 4, and Parul, 2 - died of starvation in the national capital last month, a fact-finding report by a group of six activists has found. The team that included Harsh Mander, a former bureaucrat and special commissioner to the Supreme Court for Right to Food cases, found that...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Academics feel that the ambiguity over the fate of those who might eventually be excluded from the final National Register of Citizens in Assam should be cleared at the earliest. Sanjib Baruah, professor of political science at New York's Bard College, told the Telegraph earlier this week: "With a number like four million people being excluded (from the draft NRC), we need the think beyond the question of...

-Hindustan Times The universities need to think of evolving a strategy to hire the best people and offer them attractive salaries to keep them motivated More than half the professorial posts in country’s central universities are vacant. Of the 2,426 sanctioned posts for professors across the central universities, 1,301 have not Been filled, reveals data provided by human resource development minister Prakash Javadekar in the Lok Sabha. The lacuna caused by faculty...

-The Indian Express Data on hate crime needs to be collected through recording bias indicators, group identity of victims and the nature of violence. In the midst of a perceptible rise in cases of lynching and mob violence against religious and caste minorities, the Supreme Court has called for firm action to prevent, remedy and punish these horrific acts. On July 17, the Court issued guidelines and also recommended that Parliament enact...