-The Times of India   Born in Parliament, the right to education (RTE) is now being nurtured by children who want to make it a reality in every part of the country. On Children's Day, students from different states related their struggles and successes in bringing their friends to school and teachers to the classroom. They demanded hygienic mid-day meals for students and also raised their voice against gender discrimination. These little...

Many people including members of Team Anna have expressed reservations about the way in which their campaign has been developing, and some have even resigned. This raises questions about the real aim of the leadership around Anna. Is it really what it is proclaimed to be? Is the aim to get the Jan Lokpal Bill passed by parliament? Team Anna has repeatedly stated that they have just a one-point agenda: to get...

-The Times of India Given the impunity generally enjoyed by perpetrators of communal violence, the imposition of life sentence on 31 rioters for burning alive 33 Muslim victims in Sardarpura in the 2002 Gujaratriots is a milestone in India's history. If the signal goes out that those responsible for heinous communal massacres do not enjoy immunity from prosecution, that in itself will have a salutary effect in curbing their incidence. It's...

As in most social sector indicators, Kerala tops the national child rights index, followed by Karnataka. Arunachal Pradesh is the worst performer in protecting the rights of children. Strangely, Kerala's child marriage indicator is the lowest, and the State's performance is far from satisfactory in early childhood care and crimes against children. One point that stands out in the indexing — the first of its kind in the country — is that...

Sardarpura, 50 km from Mehsana town and not far from Vadnagar, home of Chief Minister Narendra Modi, had been declared a Samras village, part of one of the first schemes launched by Modi after he took charge in 2001. Under the scheme, a village could appoint its sarpanch unanimously without an election. In Sardarpura, sarpanch Kachra Tribhovan Patel and former sarpanch Kanu Joitaram Patel were among the accused. Both were among...