-PTI New Delhi: To mark the second International Day of the Girl Child, UNICEF on Friday highlighted the power of innovation to get more girls in schools and improve the quality of learning for all children. Millions of girls are still out of school, including 31 million primary school aged girls who are denied quality education and a chance to reach their full potential. According to UNICEF, evidence shows that even a single...

-Outlook The faecal matter hits the rotary blades, politically-but we're still staring at a sanitation disaster "Indians defecate everywhere. They defecate mostly besides the railway tracks. But they also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the river banks; they defecate on the streets; they never look for cover." -V.S. Naipaul An Area of Darkness, 1964 Not...

-Economic and Political Weekly   Much work remains to be done if the new Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act has to mark a meaningful shift for India's adivasi communities. Chitrangada Choudhury (chitrangada@csds.in) Chitrangada Choudhury (chitrangada@csds.in) is a multimedia journalist and researcher, and currently with the Publics and Policies program at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi. Among the worst excesses committed in India's six decade-old democracy, the forcible displacment...

-The Times of India BANGALORE: Karnataka, often called a "progressive state", has the highest dropout rate among Muslim students. On an average, 50,000 students from the community dropout of school each year, a majority of them at the high school level, according to a survey done by the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). The average dropout rate is 6.2% compared to the national average of less than 5%. "The statistics show a worrisome trend,"...

-The Economic Times MUMBAI/ NEW DELHI: For almost eight months, 30-year-old Reena Sahani spurned inappropriate requests by her boss to meet him outside of work. He changed tack, loading her with more work to make her stay back late in office. Finally, emboldened by chats with a company-appointed counsellor, she lodged a complaint. Rooma Sircar, an IT executive, tolerated an innuendo of sexually explicit jokes by a senior male colleague for...