Around 32,000 schools in the state will be slapped with notices for not following the rule of giving 25% of their seats to students from weaker socioeconomic sections under the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education 2009 (RTE) Act this academic year. Another notice will also be issued to schools that haven’t started the process for obtaining a certificate of registration which has become mandatory for all schools under...

-The Hindu Left parties for invoking Revenue Recovery Act against Rakshana Steels ‘owned' by YSR's kin With the State government cancelling the Bayyaram iron ore mining lease earlier granted to Rakshana Steels, a company allegedly belonging to former Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy's kin, the demand for recovery of the lost mineral wealth has gained momentum. An enormous extent of over 1.41 lakh acres of iron-rich areas spread across Bayyaram, Garla and...

-The Economic Times Kulvinder Gill, professor of breeding and genetics at the Washington State University in the US, describes himself as a dreamer and an optimist. One of his dreams is to make sure food production does not decline over the next few decades, when increasing temperatures act on the yields of major crops. Specifically, he is beginning a project with six other organisations in India to make wheat less sensitive to...

In a fresh controversy over how the Mamata Banerjee regime takes criticism, the West Bengal Higher Education Department has sought an explanation from two government college teachers whether they took permission to take part in television discussions, in which they allegedly expressed “anti-government views.”  Debasish Sarkar, associate professor of Economics at Jhargram Raj College, and Shampa Sen, head of the Department of Bengali at Hooghly Mohsin College, have been asked to...

Koli people struggle for their hearths and homes as politico-businessman lobby mows down homes for redevelopment project   Ugly tidings were round the bend for Kalpesh Shivkar when a registered letter arrived from Pilot Constructions Pvt. Ltd. in March 2010 requesting him to vacate his house in the interests of redevelopment. This was followed by an impassive notice issued by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation pasted on his door, directing the Shivkar family to...