Matriculate Trained Teachers, who make up 87% of school teachers in India, get Rs 775 in UP Rs 892 in Assam and Rs 1,507 per month in Punjab. Even in the most highly rated schools, the average salary is Rs. 7,225 p.m. Nearly 200,000 teachers in Bihar draw a salary less than that of a peon in the government. Teachers with post graduate degrees teaching primary to higher secondary levels, draw...

Programme aims to reduce shortage of doctors in rural areas  Students to be encouraged to take up the course and then work in rural areas It is not possible to Restrict doctors according to geographic area: IMA The Indian Medical Association, the largest non-government organisation of allopathic doctors in the country, has come out strongly against the Medical Council of India’s proposal to start a rural MBBS course called Bachelor of Rural...

The demand for a separate state of Telangana has brought into focus the economic performance of small states. Data brought out by the Central Statistical Organisation do show that most of the reorganised states tend to grow faster post-reorganisation and smaller states such as Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have grown faster after achieving state-hood than before, and at a rate higher than the average for the country. Moreover, we find...

Much like the tsunami waves that devastated many coastal areas five years ago, the closing weeks of 2009 saw an ill wind sweeping across many of our democratic institutions, highlighting that beneath the veneer of the nation’s aspirations towards great power status was a crumbling institutional core. To look at the fourth estate first. The preface to the Press Council of India’s “Norms of Journalistic Conduct” has a section that...

Bt brinjal is a genetically modified version of an eggplant that is injected with a protein that makes it immune to pests Kochi: There’s a new player in the fight against Bt brinjal, a village panchayat in Kerala that is seeking to preserve a traditional variety of eggplant. As part of the plans of the village-level elected legislative body, around 8,000 households in the Mararikulam North gram panchayat in the coastal...