Third report in three months to highlight lack of quality education in India; poses risk to knowledge hub hopes Nearly two years after the Right to Education (RTE) Act was introduced with the promise of providing free and compulsory education to all primary school children, the learning outcome in the country has actually deteriorated in terms of quality. In yet another wake-up call for policymakers, the 2011 Annual Status of Education Report...

Calling for urgent measures to provide sanitation facility across the country, Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh has pointed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that in addition to malnutrition another distressing national shame which India can't live with is open defecation. Mr. Ramesh, who also controls the Department of Drinking Water Supply which implements sanitation programme, has written a letter to the Prime Minister urging him to change the government's...

Agriculture sector undergoes a historic change as livestock surpasses the economy of food grain Policy makers in India are finally acknowledging a structural shift in the agriculture sector they have been noticing for a decade. Economic contribution of livestock is today more than that of food grain crops. Traditionally, of the three components of the sector—crops, livestock and fisheries—crops drove the growth, and food grains are a major part of it....

-The Times of India   The AP High Court was pulled up by the Central Information Commission (CIC) for its failure to adhere to the RTI Act. Nine other high courts besides AP's have been given three months time to get their act right. The CIC was reacting to a complaint filed by Hyderabad-based RTI activist C J Karira and Mani Ram Sharma of Rajasthan between December 2009 and March 2010. The complainants...

A study questions the efficacy of conditional cash transfer schemes in promoting the girl child. IN an attempt to address some of the serious imbalances in society, specifically the gender imbalance, the Central and State governments have embarked on several short-term conditional cash transfer (CCT) schemes in the past decade and a half. While the Central government is convinced about the efficacy of the schemes aimed at arresting the distorted sex...