-The Hindu Students seeking 80% hike in stipends New Delhi: With hundreds of student-researchers in several institutions across the country picketing for a hike in fellowships, two senior officials said that a decision should be out by the first week of February and the hikes could range from 25-50%. On January 16 about 2,000 students and researchers, including from the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), the labs of the Council of Scientific &...

-Livemint.com All recent reforms mooted on farm credit do not address the needs of farmers for whom formal credit doors are shut Farm distress has been a sadly persistent feature for the past five years, the initial two years on account of failed rains, but in the last three years because of policy failure on a number of fronts, including, most visibly, unremunerative prices for farm produce. That it shapes electoral...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The central government scheme to reimburse employers in the private sector 50% wages of the last 14 weeks of maternity leave will be funded by a Rs 400 crore allocation and is intended to counter the perception that extended maternity leave is deterring female employment. There will be a wage ceiling of Rs 15,000 a month for eligible women. On the status of the proposal, the...

-The Telegraph Our PM doesn’t seem sympathetic to the autonomy of academic institutions. He seems to promote the idea of delivery first, then funds: Andre Beteille New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday emphasised the autonomy his government had granted to higher-education institutions but several academics questioned the claim. Inaugurating a conference on education here, Modi termed the autonomy given to the IIMs “unprecedented”. Among the freedoms granted to the B-schools by the...

-The Hindu As the job market is tight for those with PhDs in science, it is important that they develop other skill sets The number of PhD graduates has proliferated over the decades — while there were only a dozen doctorates till 1920 in India (the first was awarded in 1904), there were 24,000 in all disciplines from about 900 institutions in 2017. While the number may not be surprising, what is...