-Daily Bhaskar   Implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act that promises to provide every child between 6 to 14 years' of age compulsory education is facing many hurdles. The Act was implemented in April 2010 which makes free and compulsory education a fundamental right of every child. However, providing quality education continues to be a matter of concern in Jaipur. Several provisions of the Act are not implemented or are poorly...

The government has introduced the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation & Resettlement Bill, 2011, in Parliament. The Bill fails to address fundamental causes behind disputes and litigation over compensation. Moreover, like the existing law, it has provisions that can be misused by states to favour companies at the expense of the rights of farmers and forest dwellers. An excessive use of the emergency clause is not the only abuse of the current law...

The finance department wanted to know what would be the extra burden to the state to implement the 25% quota in private schools under the RTE. It got a mind-boggling figure of Rs 3,800 crore. The state unit of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan furnished this exact figure to the government on how much it would cost the government to reimburse private schools ( ICSE/CBSE) if the 25% seats are reserved for...

While Indian psychiatrists have rejected a World Health Organisation (WHO) study portraying India as the depression capital of the world, they say it has indirectly drawn attention to an acute shortage of trained personnel and facilities to deal with mental illness. "Declaring India as having the highest rate of major depression in the world is an aberration in interpretation," Dr. Roy Abraham Kallivayalil, secretary-general of the World Association of Social Psychiatry,...

National Infrastructure Equity Audit conducted in 125 gram panchayats in five States There is a continued prevalence of deep-rooted caste-based inequity in the contribution and availability of infrastructure and, hence, of the accessibility of services and entitlements, a report has suggested. The Scheduled Castes (SC), the Scheduled Tribes (ST) and minorities do not have access to functional infrastructure facilities as they are ‘merely situated in the general or backward classes habitations,' according...