-The Indian Express A government shorn of Western educated ministers could change the status quo. Since 1947, Indians have not spoken out so strongly and clearly for a completely new brand of people running government. Mercifully, there are no ministers educated abroad. Thankfully, none of them has been brainwashed at Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, the World Bank or the IMF, subtly forcing expensive Western solutions on typically Indian problems at the cost of...

-Economic and Political Weekly The relationship between depleting water levels and school dropout rates is poorly studied. As chronic water shortages begin to affect more regions of the country, this trend will begin to appear more forcefully. Kishore Jha (kishor.delhi6@gmail.com) is working on child rights with Terre des Homes, Germany. Devender, a 14-year-old boy from Kheeda village in Almora district in Uttarakhand State, studies in Class 8. He spends at least three hours...

-The Indian Express India needs a national effort to speed up human development. That India was ranked 135 out of 187 countries on UNDP's human development index is perhaps the greatest concern for a nation with global ambition. In order to sustain our growth momentum and translate the gains of growth into wellbeing at a faster pace, India needs to rejig its strategy for accelerated human development. The performance in education and health...

-IPS News MALKANGIRI (Odisha)- Scattered across 31 remote hilltop villages on a mountain range that towers 1,500 to 4,000 feet above sea level, in the Malkangiri district of India's eastern Odisha state, the Upper Bonda people are considered one of this country's most ancient tribes, having barely altered their lifestyle in over a thousand years. Resistant to contact with the outside world and fiercely skeptical of modern development, this community of under...

-Outlook Guwahati: Assam suffers an average loss of Rs 200 crore every year due to devastating floods with nearly 40 per cent of the state's total land declared as flood-prone by the government. According to the Economic Survey, Assam for 2013-14 tabled in the Assembly during the ongoing Budget session, the average annual loss due to flood in Assam is to the tune of Rs 200 crore and in 1998, the loss...