The Centre has superseded the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) for six months and its functions have been taken over by the Human Resource Development Ministry. A notification to this effect was issued by the Ministry on Thursday under sub-section (1) of Section 30 of the NCTE Act, 1993. The NCTE is a statutory body set up to regulate development of the teacher education system. Show-cause The supersession follows a June 2...

The sight on television was heartbreaking: children lying in rows in the searing sun to be human shields against the takeover of their land for Korean giant POSCO’s mega bucks project. Facing them were armed police sent by the state government to assist in the operation. The steel plant and port project, located in a coastal district of Odisha, has been in a six-year-long eyeball-to-eyeball battle with people whose land will...

-The Business Standard   To submit report on use of children in anti-Posco agitation soon. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has urged the Orissa government to take immediate steps to withdraw police forces who have been given shelter in schools in the Posco project site area. The commission also appealed to the state Chief Secretary B K Patnaik, secretary (women & child development) Arti Ahuja and the anti-Posco outfit...

-The Hindu   More than half of these children are illiterate The streets of Delhi are home to more than 50,000 children, according to a census conducted by non-government organisation Save the Children and Institute for Human Development. Conducted in July and August last year, the findings of the census have been compiled into an extensive report titled “Surviving the Streets” which was recently presented to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit. The study used...

Boommi Gowda used to fear the night. Her vision fogged by glaucoma, she could not see by just the dim glow of a kerosene lamp, so she avoided going outside where king cobras slithered freely and tigers carried off neighborhood dogs. But things have changed at Gowda's home in the remote southern village of Nada. A solar-powered lamp pours white light across the front of the mud-walled hut she shares with...