-The Hindu   A Fast Track Sessions Court here on Friday acquitted 11 of the 14 persons arrested from Kota, Baran and Jodhpur in the aftermath of the May 2008 Jaipur serial blasts. The court did not find any evidence that could connect the accused with the alleged crime. The Anti-Terrorism Squad of Rajasthan police had claimed that all the accused, who it said were members of the banned Students Islamic Movement of...

Thousands of undergraduate women students of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) may finally be able to access the university library — after a struggle spanning several decades.   While students enrolled in professional courses are allowed to use the resources of the Maulana Azad Library (MAL), which is one of the best libraries in the country, those in non-professional courses can’t go past the MAL gates. Union HRD Minister Kabil Sibal on Wednesday assured...

Harvard University has dumped former union minister and Janata Party President Subramanian Swamy from its 2012 summer school faculty after protests from teachers and students over an allegedly anti-Muslim opinion article Swamy wrote for an Indian newspaper earlier this year.  "Harvard has established a principal that the person teaching there is accountable to whatever he writes elsewhere is a not good for them," Swamy said reacting to the university's action. Only dangerous...

Some time ago, newspapers in Britain carried full-page advertisements from the curiously named British Pig Association. This consortium of pig farmers was clamouring publicly that the supermarket chains were squeezing the farmers dry. Alongside them, Britain’s dairy farmers complained that a supermarket cartel was paring down their prices, while production costs went up and up. These farmers too have powerful lobbies; they are still in business. To this end, Britain, like...

The scheme seeks to add a superstructure of digital empowerment without laying an adequate foundation Until recently, S. Dhibeka, 16, who had never used a computer until she chose the computer science stream last year at the aging, leafy Kakkalur Government Higher Secondary School near Chennai, could practise programming for only an hour or two a week, often sharing a desktop computer with one or more of her classmates. But since September,...