-The Hindu 40% belong to SC/ST communities; 88% of IIT Guwahati dropouts, 76% of IIT Delhi from reserved categories. Almost 63% of the undergraduate dropouts at the top seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) over the last five years are from the reserved categories, according to Education Ministry data given in response to a question in the Rajya Sabha today. Almost 40% were from the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities. In...

-The Hindu West Bengal has effectively used the vaccines supplied by the Centre, economist says West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday met Nobel laureate Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee and discussed India’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic with him. Mr. Banerjee, who is a member of West Bengal’s COVID-19 management committee, said that his sense is that the biggest problem is that the Centre is not capable of generating the supply of vaccines...

-The Hindu Business Line As our governments think and rethink lockdown measures and scheme policy interventions, it is time we, as a society collective, pay attention to our children on the brink of irreversible damage What does it mean to lose one’s childhood to unsung labour? What is it like when books are replaced by bricks, playgrounds by agricultural fields, plastic toys with heavy-metal machines, alphabet recitations by silent cries of help?...

-The Hindu The case for reservations for women and transgender persons in State jobs and higher education The Bihar government recently announced 33% horizontal reservation for women in State engineering and medical colleges. While reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) is referred to as vertical reservation, horizontal reservation refers to the equal opportunity provided to other categories of beneficiaries, such as...

-The Hindu Business Line Number of placements under the flagship PMKVY scheme plunged during 2020-21 There’s a drastic decline in the number of unemployed youth getting placements under the short-term training programme of the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) scheme during the Covid-19 pandemic. Launched in 2015, the PMKVY is among the flagship programmes of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship that aim to mobilise and train youth according to the...