Bihar Government's programme of distributing biCycles to school girls may be a modest intervention but is leading to big changes. A new research-based paper, brought out in August 2013, corroborates the success of the programme and testifies that it is leading to improved school enrollment of girls and arresting their dropout rates (See links below to read full paper and earlier studies on the subject).   Based on econometric and statistical models,...

-The Hindu Despite deriving their power from Dalits and the marginalised, the principal parties in Uttar Pradesh have turned away from the real issues confronting these sections, says Dalit writer Kanwal Bharti on his recent arrest My recent arrest has superbly exposed the well crafted illusion of socialism as professed by the Samajwadi Party (SP). I was arrested under Sections 153 and 295 A of the Indian Penal Code for criticising the...

-AP STOCKHOLM: Scientists working on a landmark UN report on climate change are struggling to explain why global warming appears to have slowed down in the past 15 years even though greenhouse gas emissions keep rising. Leaked documents obtained by Associated Press show there are deep concerns among governments over how to address the issue ahead of next week's meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climate skeptics have used the lull...

-Kafila.org This fact-finding exercise was coordinated by the CENTRE FOR POLICY ANALYSIS. Team members were the human rights activist and former civil servant Harsh Mander; former Director-General of the Border Security Force, E N Rammohan; Professor Kamal Mitra Chenoy of Jawaharlal Nehru University; National Integration Council member John Dayal; senior journalist Sukumar Muralidharan and CPA Director and senior editor Seema Mustafa. Introduction and Overview The first impression of the Muzaffarnagar countryside, now green...

-The Times of India Ever since data released earlier this year showed that in the past 15 years, global average temperatures had not risen as fast they had earlier, there has been much hue and cry. Climate change sceptics naturally seized upon this to declare that they had been proved right. Last month, leaked portions of the forthcoming IPCC report, too, were reported by Western media outlets to contain this...