-The New Indian Express   BHUBANESWAR: The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has asked Malkangiri district administration to submit a detailed report within 15 days on the allegations of irregularities in implementation of Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) programme in two blocks. Taking cognisance of a petition filed by Right to Food Campaign, Odisha, the national child rights panel directed the Collector to investigate into the charges. The petition stated that child...

-The Hindu The acceptance of inclusion as a concept amongst teachers is weakened by the complexity they encounter in the classrooms when dealing with children from disadvantaged families Let's consider an issue that teachers in our government schools grapple with every day. Every class across the country has a significant proportion of children who are first generation school-goers. They come from severely disadvantaged families. The support at home for such children for...

-Livemint.com Experts must stop supporting public schools that even the poor don't want for their children The problem with public schools, one is often told, is the lack of sufficient administrative supervision required to bring accountability to the system. Funds to aid learning are often misappropriated, children's learning outcome is abysmally poor, and teachers that sleep and make merry in their classes are far too common in Indian public schools. It is...

-The Hindu Considering Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's caution regarding the insecurity that people face over a lifetime due to the deprivation of basic education, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2014 calls for a hard look at the situation. Its findings amount to a distressing catalogue of the failures inherent in the pedagogic methods of instruction in vogue. The foremost among them is the overemphasis on a curriculum that...

-The Hindu The government's reasoning that the land ordinance was meant to extend the benefit of the new law to various types of land acquisitions left uncovered so far is disingenuous Democracy is an exercise in public reason. Democratically elected governments cannot simply throw around the weight of their majority. They have a responsibility to offer good reasons for their decisions. And they must do so publicly. That is why we follow...