-The Hindu One must agree with certain aspects of Prof. Krishna Kumar’s centrepiece in The Hindu on June 30, 2012 (“A messy corner of India’s modernity”), on the dilemma of the schoolteacher in denying admission to child brides but at the same time examine some of his propositions from the perspective of girls who are exercising agency to continue in the Education System. As he has stated, schools are not to be...

-The Hindu Against recommendation to delete several cartoons and texts from Political Science books   Historian K.N. Panikkar has said the S.K. Thorat panel, constituted to review the use of cartoons in the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks, had undone an academically commendable effort. Terming the majority panel recommendation to delete several cartoons and texts of some others from the political science textbooks “most unfortunate,” Dr. Panikkar told The Hindu...

-The Telegraph Next time you take a 10-minute coffee break, spare a thought. By the time you come back refreshed, a mother would have died. India recorded 56,000 maternal deaths in 2010, according to a UN report, which makes it six every hour — or one every 10 minutes. The report, released in India on July 2, means that despite various schemes launched by the Centre and state governments, the number of deaths...

-The Indian Express Prof M S S Pandian is not the sole dissenter as far as the Thorat committee’s recommendations on removal of cartoons from NCERT textbooks go. A number of academic experts roped in by the committee to review Political Science textbooks, which are at the centre of a controversy over “controversial” cartoons, also echoed views similar to Pandian and fully supported the cartoons. Set up in May following MPs’ objections...

The Bill to regulate medical education and govern human resource in health is a highly diluted version of the original draft. Distortions in the area of Human Resource for Health (HRH) are the root cause of many of the ills facing the health sector in India. Among them is the shortage of qualified medical professionals. The estimated density of 19 health workers (qualified and unqualified) per 10,000 population is nearly 25...