-The Times of India MUMBAI: After an embarrassing show in 2009, India has backed out of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) slated for 2015. The programme is a global evaluation process by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) secretariat that gauges where schoolchildren stand alongside their peers from other countries. This academic Olympics measures the performance of 15 year olds in reading, math and science. Indians were put...

-The Hindu   With her passing, Indian feminism has lost one of its earliest icons Three years ago, almost to the day, when we launched Vina Mazumdar's memoir, Memories of a Rolling Stone, the room at the Habitat Centre in Delhi was packed to overflowing. Resplendent in her beautiful silk, Vinadi, as she was known to everyone around her, smiled her way through the evening as bureaucrats, academics, politicians, educationists, feminists and others...

-Down to Earth Report by children's non-profit links childhood malnourishment to educational performance, adult income and GDP Malnutrition decrease the gross domestic product (GDP) in low- and middle-income countries, says a report by international non-profit Save the Children. Malnutrition affects educational development, physical productivity and health, and also perpetuates inequalities, such as those created by caste in India, says the report. The report, Food for thought: Tackling child malnutrition to unlock potential...

-The Telegraph Hyderabad: As rights groups accused the anti-Maoist militia Salwa Judum of atrocities on Chhattisgarh's villagers, its founder Mahendra Karma kept insisting his only aim was to "liberate" the tribals from the rebels' tyranny and propaganda. The future of the government-backed vigilante group, which still survives unofficially despite a Supreme Court order to disband it, now looks bleak after the Maoists killed Congress tribal leader Karma yesterday. The Salwa Judum (whose name...

-The Times of India Four out of every 10 suicides in Mumbai from 2007 to 2011 were due to family problems, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Similarly, 36% of suicides across the state during the same period were due to family problems. The trend was nationwide, with domestic issues being the main cause of suicides in high-incidence cities like Bangalore, Chennai and Delhi, and states like...