-The Indian Express If you are old and single, you are most likely to be a woman living in a rural area. That's the finding from the recently released Census 2011 data on households with people aged 60 years and above. A whopping 72.83 per cent of old people who live alone are women. That's 36.2 lakh old women who live on their own as opposed to 13.5 lakh old men. Of...

-Tehelka Despite the serious toll it takes on women's health, female sterilisation remains the most prevalent form of contraception in India. While memories of the 21 months of Emergency in 1975-77, imposed by the then prime minister Indira Gandhi, survives even today in the minds of Indian men as the fear of forced sterilisation, the country's population control policies have shifted over the years since then to target the politically less...

-The Indian Express The Rajasthan government is planning two significant amendments to the Right to Education (RTE) Act: reintroducing exams in at least three classes from Class I to 8, and giving more weightage to "learning outcomes" than to physical infrastructure of schools while deciding on their recognition or registration. A senior Rajasthan government official told The Indian Express that during Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje's "sarkar apke dwar" programme, Parents suggested that...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan has expressed grief over the national loss in valuable human resources which is owed to the rising tendency of young people to commit suicide when facing seemingly unconquerable adversity. Inaugurating a mass contact programme in Thrissur, Kerala, today to conscientise the general public about the increasing rate of suicides, Dr Harsh Vardhan said, "The mounting incidence of...

-Down to Earth While the state government aims to cut costs, children in remote tribal areas will be most affected After repeatedly putting off a decision on the matter, the Maharashtra government has finally decided to close down some 13,905 schools which have a student count of less than 20. Notices to this effect have already been sent to education officers in the state. Officials in the state's Directorate of Primary Education...