Ahead of its battle with dalit czarina Mayawati, the Congress-led Centre has made it mandatory for all central bodies to make at least 4% of their annual purchases from small scale industries owned by dalits and tribals. The decision, a leg up for developing entrepreneurship among SCs/STs, came as part of the new public procurement policy cleared by the Union Cabinet on Tuesday which mandates Union ministries/PSUs to make 20% of...

-The Economic Times   As the government gears up for a year-long campaign to spread awareness about the Right to Education, a report on teaching and learning in rural India finds that progress in learning ability of students has not been commensurate to the massive investment in primary education and increase in enrolment. The study conducted by the ASER Centre, a network of civil society organisations led by Pratham, in collaboration with...

The National Mission to improve the delivery of justice is at work. In October 2009, on the basis of a Vision Document adopted at a judicial conference in New Delhi, the Government of India approved in principle a National Mission to reduce pendency and delays in the judicial system and enhance accountability through structural changes, higher performance standards and capacity-building. Many past attempts to achieve the goals did not yield results...

-PTI   Questions were raised on Sunday about the use of funds donated by the public to Team Anna with Swami Agnivesh alleging that money was deposited in the trust run by Arvind Kejriwal from which the names of major team members were missing, a claim dismissed as made “out of anger”. Besides Team Anna detractor Swami Agnivesh, another former member ‘Waterman’ Rajinder Singh also raised the issue urging Mr. Kejriwal to come...

Environmentalists may be against the state government’s proposal to set up new ports along the coast, but experts feel that the state needs these facilities badly to make the most of the cargo boom expected in the next 10 years. They have also extended support to chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s campaign against the Centre’s bid to restrict the powers of coastal states and union territories with regard to determining the jurisdiction...