-The Indian Express Chandigarh: Slamming the Punjab government for sponsoring "xenophobia", the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Wednesday set aside its "discriminatory" rules, wherein it had allowed additional weightage to rural students for government jobs. A Full Bench comprising Justices Hemant Gupta, Ajay Tewari and R N Raina held the rules framed by Punjab as "illegal, unconstitutional" and beyond its "legislative competence". "State sponsored xenophobia is constitutional anathema and the principle...

-The Hindu     The Opposition, including the Left Front, has demanded a thorough probe into the incident. Taking a serious view of the death of students' Federation of India leader Sudipta Gupta in police custody, the West Bengal Human Rights Commission (WBHRC) directed the City Police Commissioner on Wednesday to probe the matter and submit a report within seven days. "The Commission has taken suo motu cognisance of the matter and directed the Commissioner...

-PTI In view of unsatisfactory progress by schools in meeting the March 31 RTE deadline, an education forum today indicated moving to court for ensuring legal entitlement under the Act and demanded Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's intervention in the matter. RTE Forum, a platform of national education networks and teachers, among others said they would demand that the Prime Minister convenes a meeting of chief ministers to ensure efficient implementation of...

-The Indian Express A nationwide study by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to examine the enrolment, access and retention of children with disabilities (CWD) has revealed that while 99 per cent of these children liked attending regular schools, 57 per cent teachers were not trained to understand their special needs. The study has found that special needs of children with mental illnesses were "neither being identified nor...

-The Hindu Chennai: Private non-minority unaided schools in the city will, hereafter, have to follow a streamlined admission procedure for intake of students under the 25 per cent quota mandated by the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. A government order (G.O.) issued by the school education department on Monday prescribes not just a common schedule for issue of application forms and declaration of admission results, but also...