-The Indian Express The Right to Education (RTE) Act to ensure students from economically weaker sections (EWS) get 25 per cent reservation in admissions has left much to be desired at the ground level as far as execution is concerned. Education officials have pointed out some loopholes that enable private schools to take it easy. As per the latest GR, flying squads have to be formed in every district to ensure schools comply...

-The Indian Express If the BJP finds itself on the back foot today, it isn't because of corruption scandals, but due to the splintering of its social coalition As the stage is set for the state assembly elections in Karnataka, former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda recently made a surprising admission: corruption is not an issue in the upcoming elections, and the precipitous decline in political morality can only be arrested by...

-The Times of India The expansion of UPA's flagship intervention - direct benefits transfer (DBT) - is likely to be pushed back by three months, shrinking the window for fullscale implementation of the scheme that Congress sees as its trump card for the 2014 polls. The scheme to ensure delivery of cash subsidies and entitlements to bank accounts of beneficiaries was launched in January 2013. However, for the scheme to live up...

-The Hindu Even as the Maharashtra government congratulated itself for addressing issues of the transgender population in a draft policy announced earlier this month, one of the provisions of the policy, which states people being transgender can be prevented through medical care, has angered the marginalised community. By this, the government has failed to acknowledge that being transgender is a choice of many people, the community's empathisers say. The draft of the...

-Live Mint Attempt to broad-base direct benefits transfer plan may help shore up the Congress’s standing among rural population The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government plans to include its flagship rural job guarantee programme in the second phase of its ambitious direct benefits transfer (DBT) plan, under which beneficiaries of social welfare programmes will receive money directly in their Aadhaar-linked bank accounts. The attempt to broad-base the cash transfer plan before several...