Now that the SC has upheld the 25 per cent clause, Centre and states must work on implementation Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of reservation of 25 per cent of admissions at the entry-level in private unaided schools for disadvantaged sections, focus should shift to the implementation of this provision. The Right to Education Act stipulates that private unaided schools “shall be reimbursed expenditure so incurred...

-The Telegraph Several states today proposed user charges on rural households for the piped water provided to them but Bengal avoided taking a stand. The Centre supported the idea, proposed by states such as Gujarat, Odisha, Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and Haryana at a conference of ministers for water supply and sanitation. Most urban households in the country now pay water charges but water has always been a free commodity in the villages....

-The Business Standard The Odisha government expects to send the comprehensive document for the 12th Plan (2012-17) to the Centre by the end of June this year. Ahead of submission of the document to the Centre, the department of planning & coordination has urged all administrative departments to submit their respective reports for compilation of the 12th Plan, listing their priorities and thrust areas, by May 31. “We will be submitting the 12th...

-The Economist UNDER a thatched roof, lit by a full, yellow moon, Shiv Kumari explains how she and her five children survive. She is a widow, 30 years old, living in a home made of packed mud. She works the nearby fields, draws a small pension, some food rations and gets a few days of paid labour each month from a rural make-work scheme. Semra village, made up of 70 households, most...

The proposed liberalisation of the mining and minerals sector is an assault on the rightful owners of the land and its resources. Tribal and indigenous communities across the world have been asserting their rights to the mineral wealth often found under the land they own or possess or have traditional rights to. They have been historically denied even a share of that huge wealth, leave alone legal rights of ownership. Under...