-The Hindu   Farmers join hands with Greenpeace to seek ban on the company The Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS), a farmers' organisation, on Monday joined hands with Greenpeace and sought an immediate ban on all open field experiments of Genetically Modified (GM) crops in the country by Monsanto (a bio-technology company), in the wake of alleged violation of bio-safety norms by the multinational seed firm in Bijapur. The KRRS' demand comes in...

-The Business Standard   A young entrepreneur with an engineering degree from India’s premier engineering school and a postgraduate degree from the US’s finest technical school develops an innovative service aimed at ameliorating the energy utility situation in rural India. In 1995, he co-founds SELCO India, which provides customised energy solutions based on each household’s requirements. It facilitates low-income rural households to secure financing help from local financial institutions. Read how...

The State's public education system faces the threat of dilution from several quarters. WHEN a national law is finally in place to ensure that not a single child is out of school, there is a growing concern in Kerala, which already has a well-established, though languishing, public education system, about the United Democratic Front (UDF) government's moves to sanction a large number of private, unaided schools. The decision to issue no...

A recent ILO report focusses on the discrimination in employment opportunities and remuneration and wants governments to act. IN recent years, one of the predominant concerns of international organisations, especially those that have a “rights” perspective, has been the impact of the global downturn on various vulnerable sections across the world. Notwithstanding the fact that many countries have signed and ratified conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and are...

The Right to Education Act, which lacks a transformational vision, is geared to preparing foot soldiers for the global market. THE most encouraging and delightful news regarding school education in India since the pro-market reforms began in 1991 came from Erode district in Tamil Nadu recently. To be sure, it is neither about the World Bank-sponsored District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) of the 1990s nor about the internationally funded and...