-The Hindu None of our Teacher Education programmes has ever seriously tried to achieve a clear and convincing enough understanding of what one tries to achieve through education. It always has been a rhetoric of larger aims and working for myopically understood parental and market aspirations All curricula are situated in contexts and are simultaneously guided by ideals. Therefore, an understanding of and a balance between the two is essential. We have succeeded...

-The Indian Express The Situation Assessment Survey (SAS) of agricultural households, released last week by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), is the second one ever to be done. The SAS of 2003 was necessitated by the agrarian crisis of the time. Farmer suicides had reached a peak, and the reference year for the survey, 2002-2003, had seen severe drought. The agricultural sector was in crisis, with growth rates slowing to...

-The Indian Express On Tuesday morning, Lukumoni Orang gave birth to a baby boy. Less than 12 hours later, she was running through paddy fields, holding the infant close to her chest, chased by suspected NDFB(S) militants firing their AK-series weapons. A resident of Milanpur village, near Sonajuli-Phulbari, where the armed militants struck on Tuesday evening, Lukumoni is among the many Adivasis who have taken shelter at the Tinisuti Middle School, about...

-The Hindu While India and other countries have been opposing a review of their national contributions to tackle climate change, chairperson of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Dr. R. K. Pachauri is firm that unless there is a process of review in place, the direction the world is taking to tackle climate change will not be clear. A periodic review of targets and achievements is a must, he...

-The Business Standard Govt suppresses report recommending radical reforms to improve their socio-economic status as it goes against Centre's rapid industrialisation agenda The National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre has suppressed the report of the High-Level Committee on the Status of Tribals. The report presents a scathing analysis of how development activities and strategies in India have increased the socio-economic gulf between tribals and rest of the citizens of India and...