-Frontline A survey conducted by the Women and Child Development Ministry and UNICEF in 28 States and Delhi presents a dismal picture of crucial maternal and child health indicators. ONE OF the success stories that successive governments at the Centre have regularly narrated is the improvement in maternal and child health indicators, including coverage of various facilities and services that directly or indirectly affect the health and well-being of these cohort...

-Hindustan Times Ranchi: Education is perhaps the only tool that has the power to change society, says 28-year-old Supriya Kujur, a tribal woman from Jharkhand’s Gumla district. Having struggled to educate herself, Kujur, who now runs a school in her village, is bringing about the change in the neighbourhood. Kujur’s school has more children than the 50 students enrolled in the government school in her village. Currently 250 students attend her school — Sukru...

-Hindustan Times The picture of rural Indian life today that emerges from what is probably the world's largest study ever of household deprivation is sobering and sombre. It describes a massive hinterland still imprisoned in persisting endemic impoverishment, want, illiteracy and indeed hopelessness. It tells a story that every thinking and caring Indian must heed. Advocates of free markets, opposed to building a welfare state, have long argued that accelerated market-led economic...

-Hindustan Times It was a showpiece legislation when it was launched by the UPA government in 2009. The Right to Education, many hoped, would ensure a decent level of primary education to those who cannot afford expensive private education. The scheme started with much fanfare, but in a few years, reports started coming out that while enrolment in schools has shot up (almost 99% now), the quality of education has not...

-Business Standard Why the public-private partnership model in education doesn't get a show of hands from its naysayers   Jaipur   July 8, 1 pm: Around 500 school teachers were protesting outside the building of Shiksha Sankul, which houses the various educational departments in the state. They burnt effigies of the education minister, demanding the Vasundhara Raje-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government withdraw the order on increased man-days. The teaching fraternity wanted the government to revisit...