The apex court upholds an order allowing students to inspect their answer sheets but makes discomfiting observations on the scope of the RTI Act. IN 2008, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) rejected an application filed by a candidate under the Right to Information Act for the inspection and re-evaluation of his Secondary School Examination answer books. The reason cited was that the CBSE shared a fiduciary relationship with...

Ardent admirers of the Supreme Court will credit it with starting three revolutions in the past three decades. In the 1980s the public interest litigation (PIL) movement opened the doors of the court to every citizen, especially those who could not reach it due to poverty, illiteracy or backwardness. Around the same time, the court sowed the seeds of citizens’ right to know in a few judgments, asserting that sunlight is...

While the Delhi government is responsible for implementing the Right to Education Act in the city, its own schools seem to be the worst offenders. Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) has received 14,752 complaints since April 1 last year when RTE was enforced. Of these, as many as 12,332 complaints were related to government and MCD schools. These complaints were either received in bulk through NGOs or...

People’s body gram panchayat will be the new administrator for implementing the world's biggest social security programme, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee, instead of government officials. In a new avatar, the government has approved new guarantees under MGNREGA including registration for job through a call centres, mandatory payment of wages within 15 days at the doorstep  and providing dedicated Staff at gram panchayat to implement and monitor the scheme. The...

-KanglaOnline.com   The second day and the concluding session of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights public hearing on Right to Education Act, child trafficking, child labor, disabilities and other child rights was conducted today at Kangla Hall, Imphal. The two day public hearing concluded today on the note that several cases regarding infrastructure and maintenance on school systems had to be addressed by the concerned director of schools and other...