-The Hindu Salem: Officials in the Department of Education in Salem district are resorting to ‘intimidating and dissuading’ tactics by asking the parents of school dropout children, majority of them Dalits, not to send their wards to the Public Hearing on Child Right Violations in Western Districts of Tamil Nadu, being organised here on Monday claimed the organisers. Salem People Trust and Samakalvi Iyakkam- Tamil Nadu, supported by Child Rights and You...

-Deccan Herald Bangalore: While 42 children of ragpickers in Pune are all set to begin a promising academic year under the provisions of the Right to Education Act, domestic workers in Bangalore are waking up to the potential of the provisions to provide better education to their children.    This is mainly due to lack of awareness, according to Domestic Workers Rights Union (DWRM) that comprises nearly 2,200 domestic workers spread across...

-Tehelka Edited Excerpts From An Interview NOTED ECONOMIST and Columbia University Professor Jagdish Bhagwati’s pro-free trade stance is well-known. A friend of the prime minister and his batch mate from Cambridge University, Professor Bhagwati feels the UPA’s departure from the stagnation of the past few years is a welcome change, and lauds the decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail. In an interview to TEHELKA Business Editor Shaili Chopra, Bhagwati says more...

-Live Mint National Advisory Council seeks an institutional audit of the implementation of the Right to Education programme In yet another signal that the ruling Congress party is getting ready for the next general election, the National Advisory Council (NAC), which sets the social agenda for the Union government, has sought an institutional audit of the implementation of the government’s marquee Right to Education (RTE) programme. NAC is headed by Congress party...

-The Indian Express The dismal picture painted in Pratham’s latest Annual Status of Education Report must provoke policymakers to urgently assess and tackle the crisis in India’s primary school education. Pratham, an NGO, has done stellar work these past years in surveying the learning outcomes in schools countrywide. Its 2012 report details a rapid decline in students’ ability to keep up with the syllabus. It has found, for example, that only...