-The Hindu The Supreme Court on Friday refused to interfere with the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand poll schedule announced by the Election Commission (EC). A Bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justices A.K. Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar dismissed a public interest writ petition seeking rescheduling of the Assembly elections, holding that it was not for the court to decide the schedule. Petitioner C. P. Vyas said that while the U.P. Assembly elections...

A government-appointed panel has suggested launching online higher education courses, a step experts said would not only widen access to knowledge but also check irregularities in distance learning. Apart from permission to universities and deemed universities to offer courses through the Internet, the committee has recommended that the government set up a Distance Education Council of India (DECI) as regulator. Fourteen open universities and 172 other institutions now offer distance education to...

-BBC   India's election authorities have put on hold a government decision to reserve a proportion of government jobs and seats in state-run education centres for minority groups. The quota - of 4.5% of jobs and seats - has been suspended until elections are held in five states next month. Critics say the Congress party announced the quota to woo Muslim minorities in the upcoming polls. Opposition parties had complained about the move. They accused the...

The University Grants Commission has demanded a four-fold hike in funds allocation in the 12th five-year Plan to create 10 million additional seats in higher educational institutions. The demand has come in spite of the higher education regulator managing to spend only 50 per cent of the Rs 46,449 crore allocated in the 11th Plan three months before the period ends. The UGC has submitted a detailed report to the HRD ministry,...

A study questions the efficacy of conditional cash transfer schemes in promoting the girl child. IN an attempt to address some of the serious imbalances in society, specifically the gender imbalance, the Central and State governments have embarked on several short-term conditional cash transfer (CCT) schemes in the past decade and a half. While the Central government is convinced about the efficacy of the schemes aimed at arresting the distorted sex...