-NDTV Yamuna Nagar, Haryana:  Daughters are precious, don't kill them even before they are born - this was the message actor Aamir Khan wanted to spread through the first episode of his much talked-about TV show "Satyamev Jayate." Aamir talked at length about the alarming statistics on female foeticide and shared case studies - all with the aim of convincing the masses to discourage and help eradicate the social evil. So...

-The Financial Express Lots of work ahead to make RTE work The reasons behind the poor performance of schools students in India are slowly being whittled down from a whole range of reasons (low attendance, high drop-out rate, lack of teachers, lack of adequate number of schools, etc) to just a few key areas that need a lot of work. The most pressing need seems to be the paucity of trained and...

-The Times of India SIDLAGHATTA: That the girl child is stereotyped is nothing new. But this school in Sidlaghatta, 60 km from Kolar, took it to another level with its girl students. The school does not have a group D employee to do the regular cleaning. So the girls in the school clean the toilets, among other things, after their classes. Ironically, the Higher Primary School at Ammaganahalli won the 'Best School...

The Government of India has formally launched the news Guidelines of the MGNAREGA based on the Mihir Shah Committee report. The news guidelines include many new works under conservation activities and it strengthens the hands of the village panchayats and gram sabhas. However, the list of works does not include the activities under the system of rice intensification (SRI) which encourages scientific method of paddy cultivation with better yield in...

-The Indian Express The government on Tuesday informed the Lok Sabha about the expansion of the scope of activities permitted under the rural job guarantee scheme by including 30 new activities. These will supplement agricultural and animal husbandry operations along with flood management and sanitation-related works in rural India. According to the copy of the government notification put before the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, the government has amended Schedule-I and Schedule-II of...