-Live Mint Unesco lauds government effort, political commitment in implementing Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan New Delhi: Bringing cheer to India's administrators, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) said the country has progressed the most in the world in sending children to schools by committed implementation of its right to education law and universal elementary education programme. "India has made the largest progress in absolute terms of any country in the world...

-The World Bank blog "Five years ago, I was no one," said Kunti Devi to me, sitting up straight against the wall of her one-room mud hut in Bara, a small village in India's eastern state of Bihar. "Now, people know me by my own name, not just by the name of my children." I was sitting on the floor, across from Devi, a mother of eight, who belonged to one of...

-The Hindu Switching to renewable energy sources in the country's midday meal programme will save millions of rupees. But only a few kitchens are doing anything about it, says the author. This is a story of facts and figures and sheer size. Of an auditorium-sized room dense with hot steam from cooking. Of seven tonnes of cooked rice and four tanker-loads of steaming sambar that needed 70 pairs of hands for cutting...

-PTI A top UN official has said that the violence against women is the "most pervasive" expression of gender-based discrimination and it remains unacceptably widespread. United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said, "Violence against women is the most pervasive expression of gender-based discrimination." She was speaking at the UN Human Rights Council during its annual full-day discussion on women's rights on Wednesday. "International developments have been mirrored by efforts at the national...

-The Hindu Violence against the state is tragic but it contains the seeds of rejection. Only an inclusive approach that respects human rights can eliminate extremism Perhaps no other chain of events in the recent past has had a more direct and substantial impact on the life of human beings across the world than acts of terror. Terrorism has not only affected our lives directly, but has also allowed the state to...