-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 State officials are apprehensive of targeted coverage and allocations Chennai: The National Food Security Bill, which is again in news these days, may be generating much excitement in most parts of the country, but not in Tamil Nadu. The reason: a more comprehensive model in the form of universal public distribution system is in place. Successive State governments in Tamil Nadu have held that the coverage of the PDS should be...

-The Hindu But it has been offset by substantial increase in urban areas of the district Chennai: The population of the Scheduled Caste (SC) in the rural Kanyakumari district has witnessed a negative growth of 29.3 per cent, but it has been offset by a substantial increase of 35.3 per cent in the urban population. It is the only district in the State that has registered negative growth in rural SC population, as...

-The Hindustan Times Kolkata: Probing the infamous Saradha scam for Bengal's investigating agencies is like searching for the man who stole overcoats in Nikolai Gogol's The Overcoat. It is a mammoth task made more difficult due to the involvement of political bigwigs. The enormity of the challenge is manifold. First, the web of financial irregularities amounting to thousands of crores of rupees. Second, the involvement of politicians in the scam and third,...

-PTI Panaji: Insisting that it is not against the Food Security Bill, BJP today said Congress is making "baseless allegation" that the main Opposition party is blocking the proposed law, even as it faulted the draft legislation on a "lot" of provisions. The party contended that it was not responsible for the failure of the Bill being taken up in the last Budget session, but the Congress' "adamant" approach to the opposition's...