-ThePrint.in In many schools of Bhopal, students are being put in classes based on the language they choose to study, but that has other consequences. Nazia Erum explains in this excerpt from her book ‘Mothering A Muslim’. Sanskrit is offered across most of India as an elective third language. Students can opt for it or a regional language or a foreign language. When it’s time for the elective language class, the students...

-Down to Earth Although farmers vote at least as much, if not more than industrial workers or urban middle classes, elections are not fought around farmers' issues Elections are about numbers. Democratic politics is about stitching together a majority. So, the larger a group, the bigger is its “vote bank”, and greater is its electoral clout. A social group that constitutes a majority can therefore dictate its terms in an electoral democracy....

-The Economic Times A rise of just 2 degrees Celsius in global warming could make over a quarter of the world's land to become drier and more desert like, increasing the threat of widespread drought and wildfires, new research led by one of Indian origin has found. The study showed that reducing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere to limit global warming under 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius would dramatically reduce the...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The National Human Rights Commission has sent a notice to the Maharashtra government following media reports that its education department has decided to close down zila parishad schools with fewer than 10 students and shift them to nearby institutes. The NHRC, in a recent directive, gave the state government four weeks to submit a detailed report. It said the decision, likely to affect about 1,300 schools, according to the...

-The Telegraph Ranchi: An elderly woman, who was allegedly denied ration for three months because of Aadhaar data mismatch, starved to death on December 25, a report released by the Right to Food Campaign said on Tuesday. Etwaria Devi (67), a resident of Sonpurwa village in Majhiaon block of Garhwa, 225km from the state capital, was purportedly the fifth victim of hunger in the state last year although the glaring cause of...