Students graduating in law may have to do a stint of compulsory practical training in courts, like the internship that medical graduates have to undergo. Law teachers this newspaper spoke to agreed that such a period of apprenticeship would help new law graduates but argued that it should be kept optional. The original proposal to make legal internship a compulsory part of the five-year LLB course had come from the Chief Justice...

-PTI With two years into the RTE and 32 states having notified the rules, government today said they should now also focus on strict implementation of provisions against corporal punishment and detention and initiate curricular reforms. HRD Minister Kapil Sibal asserted that improving quality is critical if the objective of the Right to Education (RTE) is to be fulfilled even as he noted a decline in dropout rates in states like Bihar...

Jammu and Kashmir is witnessing a boom in places of worship and prayer, although some academics say this does not necessarily mean the state’s population is turning more religious. Figures released yesterday by the directorate of census operations also suggest a rise in prosperity, with the state’s people living in better houses than before. The state has witnessed a 53 per cent increase in the number of religious places in a decade,...

-The Telegraph   The risk of dying from cancer is nearly the same in rural and urban areas and the highest among the least educated, according to a study described as the first to provide nationally representative estimates of cancer deaths across India. The study, by researchers at the University of Toronto, Canada, and collaborating Indian institutions, challenges a common perception that cancer in India is primarily a disease of urban and educated...

Tobacco-related cancers and cervical cancers caused most cancer deaths Cancer killed 5,56,400 people across the country in 2010. The 30-69 age group accounted for 71 per cent (3,95,400) of the deaths. In 2010, cancer alone accounted for 8 per cent of the 2.5 million total male deaths and 12 per cent of the 16 million total female deaths in this age group. These are some of the findings of a paper published...