Ahmedabad : In a five-page concept note that will be further expanded and which is expected to guide the government policy during the 12th Five-Year Plan for the state, 10 senior academics have pointed out the areas of concern in rural parts of Gujarat. They have put forward a proposal before the state. The paper is a result of a meeting chaired by IRMA chairman Professor Y K Alagh on the...

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's strong criticism of political India for its gross neglect of elementary education over the decades has revived the debate on the quality of school education and also the scope of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 in addressing the problem of “out-of-school” children, who are estimated to number about 14 crore. Speaking at a university function recently in New Delhi, the...

Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh has proposed an “ACTIONS” plan as the guiding principle for the 12th Five Year Plan, putting off the Planning Commission's suggestion to axe Centrally sponsored schemes and give States a free hand to chart their path of development. After his meeting with Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Saturday, Mr. Ramesh told The Hindu of the discussion they had on...

A strong Lokpal Bill is necessary to fight corruption, but it cannot become a “supreme body” above Parliament with control over the legislature, executive and judiciary, Sudhakar Reddy, deputy general secretary of the national council of the Communist Party of India (CPI), has said. Speaking at the launch of the anti-corruption campaign by the Left parties here on Saturday, Mr. Sudhakar Reddy said that participation of civil society organisations could not...

One lives to learn — or unlearn. The working head of what passes for this country’s Planning Commission is unambiguous about it. One important measure to fight inflation, he believes, is to raise prices. That is to say, to stop prices from rising, you must first raise prices. The gentleman has heartily endorsed the recent serial increases in the prices of petroleum products since such increases will, in his view,...