-New Indian Express Bangalore: Child rights activists are fuming over the Department of Public Instruction's (DPI) recent clarification that no section of the Right to Education (RTE) Act applies to unaided minority schools, prompting a need to revisit the Supreme Court order of last April. After several ‘misinforming' statements by its own officials on various public platforms, the DPI, on April 24, clarified that "it would take no initiatives to enforce the...

-The Hindu   Top civil society bodies are challenging the government's ‘counter-affidavit' in the Paid News case which seeks to gut the Election Commission's powers In a major twist to the Ashok Chavan vs. Madhav Kinhalkar legal battle (more notorious as the "Paid News" scandal), leading civil society organisations and eminent individuals have approached the Supreme Court to implead themselves into the case. Their intervention application, moved by advocate Prashant Bhushan, minces no words...

-The Hindu The National Commission for Women has extended its support to the ongoing campaign for allowing non-professional undergraduate women students in Aligarh Muslim University access to the Maulana Azad Library. The NCW has written to the Union Human Resource Development Ministry expressing its concern over "the gender discrimination". Faculty members and students, who have been demanding an end to the "discriminatory" practice that does not allow students from Women's College access...

-Live Mint Move part of strategy to counter growing incidence of non-communicable diseases; course to be part of 2014 academic curriculum Concerned by the growing incidence of non-communicable diseases (NCD), the government wants to introduce a new, graded subject in school focusing on health education in classes IV to X. The course will be a part of 2014's academic curriculum and is being designed by the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare...

-Frontline   But in Modi's Gujarat the difference between development and darkness is all too visible to those who care to see. NARENDRA MODI may have won three consecutive elections and ruled Gujarat for more than a decade after he was posted there almost as a night watchman, to borrow a cricketing expression. He may have mobilised a massive fan following that is shouting to catapult him into the Prime Minister's post,...