-The Hindu After a long and painful period of neglect, India promises to devote attention to the issue of preparing all children for primary schooling. The draft National Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) policy aims to end the "current laissez faire situation" that has led to the mushrooming of expensive crèches, play schools, nursery schools and so on that adhere to no particular standard. On the other hand, there is...

-The Indian Express Rajasthan/ Delhi: Three states where the UPA govt has rolled out direct cash transfers go to polls later this year. On the ground, the scheme has not quite turned out the game-changer the government reckoned it would. A frail Gori Sahaab, 90, instructs his son to pour mustard oil into a tiny diya in his one-room house. He once used a kerosene lamp but has stopped buying that fuel....

-Down to Earth   This defies logic. Despite rapid economic growth, India has often been placed below sub-Saharan African countries that have very high number of malnourished children. But the government has no data to clarify its position. In the first week of September, Parliament’s Committee on Estimates criticised the government, saying: “The committee is surprised to note that in the modern era of Information and Technology, there is no recent official...

-The Indian Express Muzaffarnagar (UP): At Muzaffarnagar, FIRs are piling up. A total of 177 FIRs pertaining to riots were handwritten in three days at a single station. Over a hundred still remain. Dealing with this deluge of complaints is one man entrusted with the task of going through each complaint and processing it into an FIR. He (he did not want to be named) was brought in specifically for rendering...

-The Hindu ‘Victims of communal carnage still struggling, socially and financially' Forbesganj/Bhagalpur: Bhajanpur village is a few kilometres off Bihar's showcase ‘four-lane,' as drivers call the highway, a far cry from the State's back-breaking roads of the past, near Forbesganj town. Residents tell us that those affected by the kaand incident, of two years ago, live a little ahead, in the Ansari basti. A bumpy ride across the village leads to Ale Rasool...