As the final bell goes off in my daughter's school, a ripple of anticipation runs through a group of children waiting at the gate. Tiny hands stretch through eager to touch those on the other side. For an instant, a single handshake seems to bridge an insurmountable distance, the meeting of the children of the two Indias: one that is elite, entitled and exclusive and the other that is deprived,...
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The spectre of FIR raj
-The Telegraph The manner in which a professor and a retired engineer were arrested and locked up for over 16 hours in Calcutta has blown the lid off a tactic increasingly being employed in Bengal to intimidate or settle scores with dissenters. The weapon of mass-scale harassment is an oft-mentioned but little-understood piece of paper called the FIR or first information report. The method is scary — a word that cropped up several...
More »Imagine a poverty line-Surjit S Bhalla
No matter where you draw the line, the fall in poverty is greater in high GDP growth years Some plain facts and some ugly truths. The plain fact is that poverty in India has declined at a rapid pace during the UPA years post 2004. An ugly truth. When the Planning Commission released the estimates of poverty in India, on the basis of the household survey conducted by the NSS in...
More »Focus on learning, empowerment of teachers and curricula to make Right to Education a success-Urmi Goswami
In upholding the Right to Free and Compulsory Education for all Children, commonly known as the Right to Education (RTE), the Supreme Court signalled the beginning of a new approach to education. It marks a shift from the current institution-centric system to one that puts children and their interests at the core. Most Important, it is recognition of the pivotal role that education plays in a person's life, and that every...
More »The Raja Who Stole From The Poor-Ashish Khetan
As food and civil supplies minister in the previous SP regime, Raja Bhaiya swindled Rs 100 crore from the PDS. As he presides over the food ministry once again, Ashish Khetan exposes the shocking loot A LITTLE MORE than a month ago, Akhilesh Yadav, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, earned a landslide victory on the idea of hope: Ummeed ki cycle. He had promised clean governance and a corruption-free government. When...
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