-Hard News Media Despite the high economic growth, India has the highest proportion of malnourished children in the world. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, Montek Singh Ahluwalia and others gathered at IIT Delhi to discuss the Food Security Bill The jam packed Dogra auditorium of IIT Delhi was a testimony to Nobel laureate Amartya Sen’s popularity amongst students, teachers, activists, economists, among others who had congregated to hear him talk on the...

-The Hindu The aim: to generate a cadre of healthcare providers who will stay put in villages and extend comprehensive healthcare to the needy It is not unusual to find Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in villages closed for long hours, with the patients waiting for a doctor. The reason: many doctors are reluctant to serve in rural areas. Thus, the promised public healthcare to all finds little meaning for the patients in...

-The Indian Express Until recently, we took a compartmentalised view of national security. Each threat to national security was neatly fitted into one compartment. The first, of course, was a war with Pakistan. That was fitted into a compartment and was meant to be deterred, or defended, through the might of our armed forces. A war with China was, and remains, unthinkable, and therefore that threat was fitted into another compartment...

-The Indian Express ASER’s findings highlight the dismal state of school education. Improving teacher training programmes could lead to better outcomes I remember Rukmini Banerji of Pratham telling us in 2005 that ASER the Annual Status of Education Report — will be a national survey that will hold up a mirror to the condition of education in India and shake us into urgent action. For nine years now, every January, ASER is...

-DNA Many have forgotten the bad news that was delivered about a year back when three reports – the international PISA report, the Wipro-EI Quality Education Study and ASER 2011 – painted a sad picture of the learning scenario in India. The first report ranked our Class 10 children 73rd in the world out of 74 countries. The second said that students in our top private schools were learning more poorly...