-The Indian Express Less than a year after it ratified the legal status of the Right To Education (RTE) Act, the Supreme Court has held it "appropriate" for a Constitution Bench to test yet again the constitutional validity of the social welfare legislation enacted with Constitutional amendments. A Bench, led by Justice K S Radhakrishnan, last week ordered for placing a petition moved by a bunch of Karnataka-based institutions before the Chief...

-The Hindustan Times Angry that unaided minority schools have been exempt from the Right to Education (RTE) Act, the Forum for Fairness in Education (FFIE) plans to file a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Bombay high court. FFIE is challenging a notification exempting schools from reserving seats for children from economically weak families. The latest RTE notification, uploaded on a government website on March 20, said unaided minority schools will not...

-The Hindu   ‘They cannot charge for tuitions but only for extra facilities' Bangalore: A 37-year-old taxi driver, Manjunath Gowda (name changed), had brought a chocolate cake for his family after his six-year-old daughter secured a seat in a sought-after private school in Uttarahalli under a provision of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009, which guarantees 25 per cent of the seats in private unaided schools to...

-The Hindu As the world observed World Water Day last week, Bolivian water activist Pablo Solon narrates how his countrymen forced the repeal of a water privatisation attempt by the government What began as an ordinary citizen’s protest against water privatisation laid out the path for a bigger revolution that eventually paved way for Bolivia’s first indigenously elected government. With worldwide discussions for sustainable management of fresh water resources gaining ground in a...

-The Hindu Natpurwa is a village where women have been forced into prostitution for centuries. And one of them is determined to help the others break free. Round faced, stout and dusky, Chandralekha, at age 15, was the most desired girl among the politicians, policemen and senior members of Eastern Uttar Pradesh’s civil society. “They always wanted plump women,” says Chandralekha, now 51 years old. Chandralekha was pushed into prostitution, by her...