-The Telegraph Ranchi: Over 300,000 children aged between six and 14 years are still out of school in Jharkhand, fresh data tabulated by the HRD department this year has revealed, prompting the state government to pursue its annual enrolment drive for students with renewed vigour and under a new name. Today, chief minister Raghubar Das relaunched the state's enrolment campaign, earlier called School Chale Hum Abhiyan, as Vidyalaya Chale, Chalayen Abhiyan with...

-The Hindu Aim of the exercise is to map damage due to closure of 17,000 govt. schools. Eight months after the BJP government closed down 17,000 government schools in Rajasthan, dramatically pushing up the dropout rate largely among marginal communities, the Congress has decided to undertake a survey, starting in Jaipur's Amber block, to map the damage. Once the audit is over, a campaign to force the State government to reopen the closed...

-The Indian Express Jaipur: The hotly debated Rajasthan Panchayati Raj Amendment Bill 2015 fixing minimum educational qualifications for contesting Panchayat polls in the state, was passed by the state legislative assembly on Friday. With this Rajasthan becomes the only state to have mandatory minimum educational qualifications to contest for Panchayat polls. The Bill was passed by a voice vote by the dominant ruling party even as Opposition legislators raised objections to it...

-The Hindu While the rates of sexual violence in India - both reported in official statistics and unreported on the basis of household surveys - are towards the lower end of the global spectrum, data on women's autonomy in India indicate that there is a hidden emergency Having opened up a fresh conversation about the situation of women since the December 16, 2012 gang rape, has India done enough to address the...

-The Indian Express A few years ago I met a woman, let's call her Chandibai, in a village outside Udaipur. A former panchayat member, she was now a leader in her village - a person to whom others (particularly other women) turned for help. She wore her mobile on a cord around her neck and had the panchayat president, the village development officer and even the district collector's office on speed...