-The Times of India In an alarming indictment of the quality of training given to prospective school teachers, over 99% aspirants failed to clear the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) 2012. The results of the competency test conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), declared on December 27, 2012, showed that less than 1% of the 7.95 lakh who appeared managed to clear the exam. In fact, since the exam...

-The Economic Times The government is likely to miserably fall short of its rural electrification target for the current fiscal as most villages that were to be covered under the scheme are located in difficult terrains, making it difficult for the Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) to lay power lines there. Officials from Rural Electrification Corporation, the nodal agency for implementing the scheme, say many of the villages that were to be supplied...

-The Times of India The Forest Advisory Committee (FAC), under the ministry of forests and environment, has scheduled yet another meeting on Friday for clearing projects in violation of the Central Information Commission (CIC) orders. Earlier, the commission had pulled up environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan for a similar transgression. In February, the CIC had demanded that the ministry must share with public the details of projects to be cleared ahead of the...

-The Times of India From now, highway development agencies won't have to apply separately for mining of soil/ earth for such works. As per new norms devised by the environment and forests ministry (MoEF), the highways ministry or any other agency such as NHAI can apply for clearance for getting soil/earth in one go when they apply for environment clearance. The "workable" decision was taken after highways ministry received support from law...

-The Hindu To address the rights issue and the skewed sex ratio, girl child-friendly policies get an extra thrust in the 12 Plan document, to be approved formally by this month-end The 12 Plan document of the Planning Commission, to be formally approved this month-end, has recommended setting up of a high level inter-ministerial committee on ‘Care and Protection of the Girl Child’ which will constitute the institutional mechanism for mobilising and...