Pratham's seventh Annual Survey of Education Report (ASER) of rural India released on Monday tells a similar tale: rising enrolment but declining attendance, over-reliance on private tuitions, decline in reading and mathematical ability of children in the age group between six and 14. The report was released by HRD minister Kapil Sibal. Use of computer is also on the rise in upper primary schools. Almost a third (30.8%) of upper primary...

Cast your vote online in municipal elections, no matter which part of the globe you are in, is the government's message. Online voting has also caught the fancy of Norway, which has failed to come up with a well-tested system. The Panchayati Raj Ministry has directed the State Election Commissions (SECs) to allow this facility at the earliest in a bid to encourage lax urban voters to exercise their franchise. The State...

-PTI   Highlighting that 42 per cent children were underweight in a country witnessing high growth, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today described it as a national shame and said the government could not rely solely on ICDS, a programme for early childhood development, to address it.  "...The problem of malnutrition is a matter of national shame. Despite impressive growth in our GDP, the level of under-nutrition in the country is unacceptably high," he...

It is official now. Indians are consuming adulterated milk containing detergent which not only has a very less nutritious value but is also health hazardous, a recent Government survey has revealed. In its first-ever national survey on milk adulteration 2011, the Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) found that of the total 1,791 samples tested throughout the country, at least over 68 per cent i.e. 1,226 samples were either diluted...

Indigenous knowledge and farming practices of the region's tribal people recognised for promoting food security and conserving biodiversity Traditional farming systems in India have received a major boost at a time when Indian agriculture is struggling to come to terms with modern technologies. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has accorded the status of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) to the traditional agricultural system being practiced...