A government panel has suggested the Centre revise its “no intervention” policy on the Jarawas of the Andamans and try to “empower” them rather than let them continue to be what an academic has described as “showpiece hunter-gatherers”. The panel wants the government to see if it can provide food and medical help —and possibly some education and housing — to these tribals inside the Jarawa Reserve without disrupting their lifestyle. It...

The Centre is irked by the lackadaisical attitude of Bengal, Gujarat, Karnataka and Goa in notifying rules under the Right to Education act even two years after its enforcement. The Union HRD ministry has decided to tick off the states for the delay in notifying the rules, key to implementing the RTE law that provides for free and compulsory education to children between six and 14 years. Kapil Sibal will next week...

The Trinamul Congress, a key ally of the Congress in the UPA, has joined hands with several state governments headed by the BJP and others to block the human resources development ministry’s proposal to set up a National Textbook Council. Besides the TMC and the BJP, the BSP, JD(U), AIADMK and BJD oppose it. The move aimed to create a body that would monitor the content of school textbooks, including those...

Two central ministries have locked horns over the country’s youngest students, the tug-of-war for the tiny tots unfolding after a plan to bring pre-school education under the Right to Education Act. While the human resource development ministry wants to include pre-primary education under the act, which provides for free and compulsory education to children between six and 14, the women and child development department says education and childcare shouldn’t be segregated...

The human resource development ministry today agreed to some key demands of the Bar Council of India, defusing the war over regulating legal education, though it didn’t concede the turf entirely. “The ministry has agreed to accept the BCI’s demand that it should regulate all aspects of the profession of law, including its foundation through legal education,” council chairman Ashok Parija told The Telegraph after a meeting with HRD minister Kapil...