-The Hindu On Monday, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, completes three years of its existence - the time frame within which authorities were to ensure that its provisions were fully implemented - to make basic education a legal entitlement to all children aged 6-14. However, official statistics and reports from the field paint a far-from satisfactory picture, with citizens moving court against the competent authority...

-The Hindu   The government needs to open its eyes and realise that the technological utopia it envisions in the low-cost tablet is no cure for poor education, poverty or inequality The last few days have brought the Aakash tablet back into the media limelight. Last Friday, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister M.M. Pallam Raju said that troubles with the manufacturer could doom the project. But the next day, former HRD Minister Kapil...

-The Economic Times Extreme poverty afflicts more than one in five people, according to the World Bank. The institution's new president, Jim Yong Kim, speaks of the need to "bend the arc of history in order to eliminate extreme poverty and achieve shared prosperity". At a time when his bank's resources as well as the budgetary resources of governments are limited, Brazil offers important lessons on how to eliminate extreme poverty and...

-The Business Standard Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi professor and development economist Reetika Khera tells Sreelatha Menon that the food Bill may not be a leap ahead, but it is certainly a step forward * The food Bill is a guarantee for lifelong dependence on government doles. As an economist, can one defend such a policy? The food Bill should be seen as an investment. "Labour" is India's most important asset. In that sense,...

-The Hindu As the world observed World Water Day last week, Bolivian water activist Pablo Solon narrates how his countrymen forced the repeal of a water privatisation attempt by the government What began as an ordinary citizen’s protest against water privatisation laid out the path for a bigger revolution that eventually paved way for Bolivia’s first indigenously elected government. With worldwide discussions for sustainable management of fresh water resources gaining ground in a...