-The Telegraph An NCERT survey has found children from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes lagging behind in education at the primary school level amid a national debate on reservation in promotions for them. The National Achievement Survey, conducted to evaluate the learning achievement of Class V students, found SC/ST students underperforming compared to general students (see chart). Over a lakh students from 6,602 schools in 27 states and four Union Territories were...

-The Hindu A campaign launched by a community service institution to make selected villages in Bharatpur district of Rajasthan shed the below poverty line (BPL) tag has immensely benefited the poor families in the region and facilitated creation of new employment opportunities, small entrepreneurships and income-generating ventures. The youth and women are especially getting involved in new enterprises in large numbers. Kheria Purohit village in Deeg tehsil of Bharatpur district, where 15...

-The Hindu A controversial Bill on land acquisition and the compensation and rehabilitation of those whose land is sought to be acquired ran into opposition in the Cabinet on Tuesday, resulting in referral to a Group of Ministers (GoM). Last week, the Cabinet deferred discussion on the newly renamed Right to Fair Compensation, Resettlement, Rehabilitation and Transparency in Land Acquisition Bill, 2012, which was scheduled to be introduced in Parliament in the...

-The Times of India RAIPUR: The sky is overcast, the fields lush with paddy. A good harvest beckons and to complete the picture of a rural idyll, Chhattisgarh has posted 'zero' farmer suicides for 2011. For a state that has consistently reported the highest rate of farmer suicides in India, with 1,773 cases in 2008; 1,802 in 2009; and 1,126 in 2010, eliminating farmer suicides would be a thundering achievement. But...

-The Hindu A few thousand representatives of various people’s movements from across the country have gathered at Jantar Mantar in the national capital. They are Dalits, Adiviasis, sections of unprotected working class including farmers and fish-workers but they all form one ‘biradari’ of those who live off land, water, forest. They are the ones who produce, distribute, build, operate, clean, sell, drive and do all that enable society to survive, proceed...