-The Times of India The Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR) is upbeat about fish and foodgrain production during the 12th Five Year Plan (FYP) period. While the current fish production - marine and inland is about 12 million tonnes and foodgrain production touched 250 million tonnes in last fiscal, ICAR's projection for fish production in 2017, when 12th FYP ends is 15-16 million tonnes. Foodgrain production target of the nation...

-The Hindu The Maharashtra government-appointed two-member Adarsh judicial commission has concluded that the land where the Adarsh building was constructed belongs to the government. It refuted the Ministry of Defence's claim over the land and concluded that the land was not reserved for Kargil war heroes and their families. Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Tuesday tabled the commission's final report on title and reservation of the land in question before the Assembly....

While the state government has made it clear that the Right to Education Act (RTE Act) will be enforced from the current academic year, there are many who are still unclear as to what the Act means, especially the people who will be most benefited by it. RTE dictates that 25% of admissions in all private unaided schools (private minority unaided schools have been exempted) will be reserved free of cost...

Aamra ekhon-o boli ni kon kagoj porte hobe, kintu agami dine kintu setao bole debo. (Till now, we haven’t told which newspapers must be read, but in the future, we will do that as well.) – West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, speaking on March 29 in defense of her government’s decision to bar all but 13 newspapers from more than 2,400 government-approved libraries across the state. “Kunal Ghosh, associate editor...

The task of positive disciplining will be trickier for the new age teachers, who are already grappling with the new found malaise of increasing student aggression on teachers.  With “corporal punishment” and “mental harassment” punishable under the new Right to Education Act, many educators are left nonplussed.  Yes, most of them believe sparing the rod need not necessarily spoil the child, but how can teachers abdicate their prime responsibility of shaping young...