The Board of Secondary Education, Assam, will move Gauhati High Court to scrap the State Information Commission’s order that allows students to see their answer scripts under the Right to Information Act. The State Information Commissioner, B.K. Gohain, issued an order on July 4 last year which said in any public examination, whether conducted by the universities, SEBA, Assam Higher Secondary Education Council or Assam Public Service Commission, the candidates...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Audit shock by Purnima S Tripathi
A social audit on the working of the ban on child labour in the domestic and hospitality sectors reveals a sorry state of affairs. LIKE any normal child, Illyas from Varanasi, a 13-year-old, wanted to go to a regular school and become an important man some day. But poverty forced him to start working at an eatery for Rs.200 a day so that he could feed his younger siblings. He,...
More »Will counting caste help to reduce inequality? by Nandini Sundar
More thought needs to be given to the kind of data generated and its practical implications. Yesterday when the census enumerator visited, I asked him how he felt about the current debate on counting caste in the census: “Not comfortable at all”, he said, “I don't even like asking whether someone is SC/ST or Other, leave alone what their caste is.” But, he added, “caste is an inescapable reality of...
More »Reign of terror by TK Rajalakshmi
IN 2005, Gohana in Sonepat district of Haryana witnessed the torching of several Dalit homes by members of upper castes. Now Mirchpur, a village 58 kilometres away and located deep inside Hisar district, has met a similar fate. On April 21, as many as 18 homes belonging to Dalits from the Valmiki community here were set on fire by upper-caste youth over an alleged slight on the part of the...
More »Proposed RTI changes worry activists
In a letter to an RTI activist, the Department of Personnel and Training (Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions) has admitted to considering about a dozen amendments to the Right to Information Act, with the assurance that any amendment “will be made only after consultation with the stakeholders.” The letter to Subhash Chandra Agrawal is upfront about at least two of the amendments: exempting the office of the Chief Justice...
More »