-PTI   A staggering number of around one lakh HIV-AIDS positive people are availing the anti-retro viral therapy (ART) in government medical facilities of Maharashtra, which is the number two state in the country in prevalence of the dreaded disease. Maharashtra, which comes next to Andhra Pradesh in HIV-AIDS prevalence -- accounting for 18 per cent of the afflicted population in India -- has launched a multi-pronged drive to curb the menace, initiating...

-The Indian Express   Admitting that the child mapping survey conducted by its officials in December 2010 had left out many city areas while identifying eligible candidates for free education under the Right to Education (RTE) Act, UT Education Department has now roped in a research agency to rectify flaws in the data. The department has already handed over the data from its survey to the Centre for Research in Rural and...

Mahesh Kundu paid 2,500 rupees for a driving licence, Rupam Bhatia 5,000 rupees to be admitted to hospital and Vishrant Chandra 6,000 rupees for a marriage certificate. These are the commonplace bribery stories experienced by middle-class Indians who have poured into the streets to say "enough is enough". Corruption in India is as old as the Ramayana, when the evil demon Ravana bribed a guardian of hell to avoid punishment in...

-The Hindu   In his Independence Day address, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made two important announcements, both relating to education. One affirmed the government's intention to improve the quality of education at various levels and appoint an Education Commission to go into the issues. The other outlined a plan to universalise secondary education as a follow-up to the enactment of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE), 2009...

Why we are doing this story     * Tribal lands are under pressure across India. In Orissa, they have been holding out against big corporates like Vedanta and Posco. *** From afar, the fumes rising from factory chimneys in Gujarat’s industrial belt make them seem like skyscrapers on fire. It’s a grey rust-and-chemicals stretch that they call, without irony, the Golden Corridor. It extends all the way from the north of Ahmedabad, through...