There are signs of resistance from private schools to the clause in the RTE Act stipulating implementation of 25 per cent reservation. EVER since the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE Act), 2009, came into effect a little over a year ago, there has been a perceptible sense of insecurity among sections of managements of private, unaided schools, parents of children going to these institutions and, in...

The State's public education system faces the threat of dilution from several quarters. WHEN a national law is finally in place to ensure that not a single child is out of school, there is a growing concern in Kerala, which already has a well-established, though languishing, public education system, about the United Democratic Front (UDF) government's moves to sanction a large number of private, unaided schools. The decision to issue no...

West Bengal: Mamata Banerjee moves closer to keeping her promise to return to ‘unwilling' farmers the land given to Tata Motors. WITH the passage of the Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Bill, 2011, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee got one step closer to keeping the promise made to the people of Singur that she would reclaim the land allocated to Tata Motors and return it to “unwilling” farmers (that...

The episodes of violence in land acquisition by the government, as witnessed recently in Bhatta-Parsaul in Uttar Pradesh and in other states earlier, occur because patterns of violence are inbuilt into the process. Despite a bill pending in Parliament since 2007, there has been little effort by political parties to evolve a consensus on acquisition of agricultural land for non-agricultural purposes. The law as at present and also the provisions...

Only 400,000 jobs a year were generated during UPA-1, compared with 12 million annually during the NDA’s tenure Key economic data released by the government on Friday shows that the first stint of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) generated a mere 400,000 jobs a year, compared with 12 million jobs annually during the tenure of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). During the period 2004-05 to...