-The Hindu The case for reservations for women and transgender persons in State jobs and higher education The Bihar government recently announced 33% horizontal reservation for women in State engineering and medical colleges. While reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) is referred to as vertical reservation, horizontal reservation refers to the equal opportunity provided to other categories of beneficiaries, such as...

-TheWire.in Despite the state’s achievements in the education sector, the poor socio-political condition of marginalised groups keeps them out of the mainstream, with the pandemic making the situation worse. The 2021 Kerala Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) examinations recorded an all-time high pass percentage of 99.47% compared to earlier years. Although this calls for celebrations, a scrutiny of the results shows that students from the state’s tribal communities performed proportionately poorly. This...

The pandemic's first wave had a devastating impact on the livelihoods of rural workers in Bihar (including the self-employed) last year, according to a survey based research, jointly done by economists from Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability at Monash University, Australia and the New Delhi-based Institute for Human Development. A recent press note issued by the authors of the study shows that almost 94.4 percent of the households participating...

-The Hindu As children in rural India, with little access to gadgets and networks, are pushed into deeper marginalisation, a look at some initiatives that try to change this Eleven-year-old Chaithanya has not been to school in over a year. On a Sunday morning, she is glued to the television in her house in rural Ravugodlu, Karnataka, watching an English lesson. With schools closed, many children like Chaithanya are making use of...

-Down to Earth The attempt on the part of the incumbent government, to project the Bengali Muslim community as a civilisational threat to Assam’s indigenous communities is not going to help Debates on population control gained momentum in the state of Assam after the Himanta Biswa Sarma-led government assumed power in the state in May 2021. From the beginning of his tenure, the chief minister has been asserting that his government stands for...