-India Today Following the withdrawal of a subsidy for LPG cylinders by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry, the Human Resource Development Ministry will soon begin reimbursing Rs.752 crore that was spent on preparing mid-day meals in schools using unsubsidised cylinders. The Finance Ministry's Department of Expenditure had last year given "inprinciple" approval for meeting an additional expenditure of Rs.752 crore to be incurred during 2012-13 for procuring LPG cylinders after the...

-The Hindu Traditional hierarchies are too deeply entrenched to be reversed through one single measure; they need a concerted push, backed by strong will from different segments of society, including, but not confined to, politicians The rise of Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Dalit-Adivasi leaders in the political sphere is celebrated as India's "silent revolution." At the national level, this phenomenon has been especially marked since the early 1990s, leading to comments...

-The Indian Express The Rajasthan government is planning two significant amendments to the Right to Education (RTE) Act: reintroducing exams in at least three classes from Class I to 8, and giving more weightage to "learning outcomes" than to physical infrastructure of schools while deciding on their recognition or registration. A senior Rajasthan government official told The Indian Express that during Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje's "sarkar apke dwar" programme, parents suggested that...

-The Hindu At least five cases have been reported in recent times from western part of the State Meerut (Uttar Pradesh): When Rahul, a sugarcane farmer in Badaut area of Baghpat district in western U.P., shot himself on the night of September 13, he had a debt of Rs. 12 lakh. Rahul shot himself with his brother's licensed rifle in his house in Dhikana village. Anil Kumar, the Station House Officer of Badaut...

-Economic and Political Weekly Despite economic growth, government latrine construction, and increasing recognition among policymakers that open defecation constitutes a health and human capital crisis, it remains stubbornly widespread in rural India. We present evidence from new survey data collected in Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Many survey respondents' behaviour reveals a preference for open defecation: over 40% of households with a working latrine have at least one...