Celebrities readily accept government's offer to enter Rajya Sabha as 'nominated' members. But when it comes to attending House proceedings, they - barring a couple of them - prefer to keep themselves away from the very process which shapes country's fate. Poor attendance records of the celebrities including filmmakers, actors and singers during Parliamentary sessions present a grim picture of the practice of nominating those who are 'active' in their respective...

Here is a new set of official statistics that can escalate the politically contentious debate on what constitutes the poverty line. If the average monthly consumption expenditure is taken as the benchmark of what an individual needs to survive, the poverty linewould be Rs 66.10 for urban areas and Rs 35.10 for rural regions, while about 65% of the population will be below this cutoff. The figures, based on the 66th round...

-DNA The formation of School Management Committee (SMC) in the primary schools under the Right to Education Act (RTE) is a good idea but lack of any guidance for selection of the members of the committee has raised curiosity among educationists. Such committees are to be formed in 34,000 schools. Educationists working in the field of RTE believe that school authorities include Poorly educated parents in the SMC that might not serve...

-The Deccan Chronicle Unrecognised schools across the state have to seek “recognition” in order to admit 25 per cent Poor students under the RTE quota. The government will reimburse the amount for the RTE quota only in recognised schools. In Hyderabad alone, the department of secondary education has declared over 300 private schools as “unrecognised” two mon-ths ago, while as per estimates there are nearly 10,000 unrecognised schools across the state....

In what could be perceived as a disturbing trend, vaccination in rural Bihar has been adversely affected due to casteism. According to the recent survey report, which was prepared after an on-the-spot study in 14 villages of Bihar’s nine districts, several instances of “caste discrimination” have came to fore. For instance, such was the social divide in a Rohtas village that vaccinations could not take place either in Brahmin’s tola (colony) or...