-The Hindu While there is reason to be proud of the progress in the production of wheat, rice, cereals and millets, the use of farmland for non-farm purposes is a cause for concern The year 2013 marks the 70th anniversary of the Bengal Famine which resulted in the death of an estimated 1.5 to 3 million children, women and men during 1942-43. A constellation of factors led to this mega-tragedy, such as...

-First Post New Delhi: With the three-year Right to Education (RTE) deadline for unrecognised private schools to register with the government expiring in less than two months, the Delhi government has directed the schools to either apply for recognition by Friday (February 15) or risk penal action. (Read government notice here) As per the RTE Act, a school that does not have a certificate of recognition will not be allowed to function....

-The Hindu The aim: to generate a cadre of healthcare providers who will stay put in villages and extend comprehensive healthcare to the needy It is not unusual to find Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in villages closed for long hours, with the patients waiting for a doctor. The reason: many doctors are reluctant to serve in rural areas. Thus, the promised public healthcare to all finds little meaning for the patients in...

-The Hindu Effective spending, reworking the affiliation system and breaking academic bureaucracy are key to better universities Although Indian higher education suffers from many dysfunctionalities and the system overall is characterised by “pinnacles of excellence in a sea of mediocrity”, it does reasonably well by some international comparisons. Here are a few examples: — India is a global leader in terms of GDP spent by public and private sources on higher education. India...

-Kashmir Times If psychologist Ashis Nandy had planned to ignite a potentially ugly controversy at the Jaipur Literary Festival, he couldn't have done better than by insinuating intimate links between corruption and Dalits, Adivasis and Other Backward Classes. After warning that he was about to make a "very undignified" and "almost vulgar" statement, "which will shock you", Nandy said: "It is a fact that most of the corrupt come from the...