-The Times of India Mitu Kumari, in charge of a government school in Patahin, a village on the outskirts of Muzaffarpur, Bihar, has a measured enthusiasm for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement that toilets for girls will be built in schools that still don't have this basic facility. For her 146 students and three women teachers, absence of toilets is an intolerable problem. "I have written to everybody, from the village mukhia...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Cradle. Now, grave -Soumik Dey
-The Week Manorama Online Broken hearts float down the Bhakra Main Line canal. Broken by the endless struggle with the land, with the weather, with the creditor. Broken by broken promises, broken by the honour they lost, broken enough to kill themselves. And, at the sluice gate at Khanauri village they slow down, looking up with unseeing eyes. And, from the bridge across the canal, the beating hearts they broke look...
More »Inflation: Three reasons why rising food prices could be here to stay -M Rajshekhar
-The Economic Times None of the standard explanations quite explain the rise in food prices India has seen: pronounced since 2006 and alarming after 2010. Drought and poor rains? The country has seen good aggregate rainfall in most of those years. Spike in global prices? Those were high in 2007-08, not now. Fragmented value chains that allow middlemen to grab large margins? The value chain has always been fragmented. Growth has slowed...
More »75% of schools lack decent science labs: Survey -Subodh Varma
-The Times of India More than three quarters of schools in the country do not have fully equipped science laboratories for students in class 11 and 12, a survey of 2.4 lakh secondary and senior secondary schools has found. For classes 9 and 10, where an integrated science module is taught to students, over 58% schools don't have the requisite lab. "This is an atrocious state of affairs," says a sad Professor...
More »Rising burden of out-of-pocket health expenditure
A recent study published in the prestigious science journal 'PLOS One' (August 2014) shows that Central programmes like National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), and state-level initiatives like Yeshasvini health insurance scheme (Karnataka), Vajpayee Aarogyasri health insurance scheme (Karnataka), Rajiv Aarogyasri scheme (Andhra Pradesh), Chief Minister's Insurance Scheme for Life Saving Treatment (Tamil Nadu) etc. did little to reduce the financial burden arising out of...
More »