The approach paper for the 12th Five-Year Plan with focus on faster, sustained and inclusive growth is candid and forward-looking. On poverty reduction, the document notes, without comment, the annual trend decline of 0.8% accelerating to 1% during 2004-05 to 2009-10, against a promised target of 2% in the 11th Plan. It emphasises that India will easily meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of halving poverty by 2015, over 25...

Residential schools in the state are the latest additions to the bandwagon of private elite schools contravening the provisions of the national Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009. TOI did a reality check by calling them impersonating as parents and going through their websites. These schools are planning to hold a screening procedure in the form of interactions with parents of students seeking admissions at the elementary level and in primary...

Remember the over 100 farmhouse plots allotted in Noida measuring at least 10,000 sq m each without an auction or a draw of lots, including two to Supreme Court advocate Shanti Bhushan and his son Jayant Bhushan? An audit has now found that not only was there no transparency in the allotment of these plots — 101 in all — but that the Noida Authority had fixed a very low rate,...

Anyone can talk big things, but nothing beats the old saying; “Action speaks louder than words”. How do we tackle the situation where most of the so called concerned people are actually opportunists who are waiting for someone to get the beating first and decide? What will happen in a society where everyone is an opportunist with illusionary autocratic mentality; sitting comfortably at a distance and only pointing fingers of...

Notwithstanding Rahul Gandhi's reported assurances to the AIMPLB to keep madrassasoutside the purview of the RTE Act, there is an urgent need to formalise madrassa education. Almost 90% of underprivileged Muslim children attend madrassas. However, devoid of a modern curriculum, madrassas are unable to equip these students for the contemporary job market. This in turn limits their economic opportunities. By bringing madrassas under the provisions of the RTE Act, the Islamic Seminaries...