The Planning Commission has set up a working group on elementary education and literacy. It will suggest measures for faster reduction in illiteracy with emphasis on gender, regional and social dimensions, and incentivise States to achieve cent per cent literacy during the XII Plan period. To be chaired by the Secretary, Department of Elementary Education and Literacy (Ministry of Human Resource Development), the group will suggest modifications to educational indicators, computation of...

Mass leaders in India have a tradition of broaching BSP —bijli, sadak and pani — issues to strike a chord during election rallies. However, in almost each of her 150-plus rallies across the state in the election season, Mamata Banerjee deviated from the conventional mix and squeezed into her speech phrases like debt burden, public finance and economic recovery. Whether such esoteric terms found resonance or not, Mamata did get across the...

-The Business Standard   Over 6.76 million metric tonne of wheat has arrived in various grain markets of Haryana so far this season as against total arrivals of 6.36 million metric tonne last season. Record wheat arrival of 6.92 million metric tonne was recorded in the state in the year 2009-10, a spokesman of the state's Food and Supplies Department said here today. He said that Sirsa district was leading in...

-The Times of India   An unmarried Hindu woman is entitled to equal share in ancestral or coparcenery property along with other male members under the amended Hindu Succession Act, the Supreme Court has held. Coparcenary refers to equal inheritance which was Restricted only to male members of the Hindu Undivided Family but after succesive amendements several states have chosen to extend the benefit to unmarried female members too. A bench of justices...

While, the threats of a nuclear fall-out, borne out of a tragedy that happened in the Fakushima Nuke Plant in Japan, started a debate about the positives and negatives of nuclear energy. The media completely ignored the protests and the cries that were being carried out (in fact, for the last 10 to 15 years) in Northern Kerala as well as Southern Karnataka to ban the Pesticide Endosulfan. Perhaps, after the...