-Live Mint Unesco lauds government effort, political commitment in implementing Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan New Delhi: Bringing cheer to India's administrators, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) said the country has progressed the most in the world in sending children to schools by committed implementation of its right to education law and universal elementary education programme. "India has made the largest progress in absolute terms of any country in the world...

-The Times of India BANGALORE: Ever wondered why the country is fast losing its forest cover? The simple answer is that large tracts of forest land are being handed over to public and private agencies in the name of Development projects. Digest this: According to recent data acquired through RTI from the ministry of environment and forests by a group of environmentalists, the extent of forest land being diverted across the country...

-The United Nations New figures today from the United Nations educational agency show that the number of children out of school dipped slightly last year over 2011. Fifty-seven million children were out of school in 2011, according to the UN Scientific, Educational and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) Institute for Statistics, down just two million from the previous year. The agency also points out that the challenge of getting more children into school is being...

-The Hindu Switching to renewable energy sources in the country's midday meal programme will save millions of rupees. But only a few kitchens are doing anything about it, says the author. This is a story of facts and figures and sheer size. Of an auditorium-sized room dense with hot steam from cooking. Of seven tonnes of cooked rice and four tanker-loads of steaming sambar that needed 70 pairs of hands for cutting...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Defacement and corrosion of railway tracks by night soil-costing the exchequer crores-might soon be a thing of the past. All new coaches inducted into the trains run by Northern Railway will now come fitted with bio-toilets. After the successful run of bio-toilets installed in Nizamuddin-Indore Inter-City train, the railways has decided to install such toilets in all trains maintained by the Delhi division. Top sources said...