-Hindustan Times Ranchi: Education is perhaps the only tool that has the power to change society, says 28-year-old Supriya Kujur, a tribal woman from Jharkhand’s Gumla district. Having struggled to educate herself, Kujur, who now runs a school in her village, is bringing about the change in the neighbourhood. Kujur’s school has more children than the 50 students enrolled in the government school in her village. Currently 250 students attend her school — Sukru...

-Hindustan Times The Narendra Modi government on Thursday called the debate on abolishing capital punishment “legitimate” but made it clear there was no way India could afford to take the leap now due to terrorism in India and the country’s disturbed neighbourhood. Finance minister Arun Jaitley also rejected suggestions that the government had been in a hurry to execute 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts convict Yakub Memon and made it clear that...

-Hindustan Times India is on course to be the world’s most populous nation by 2022, surpassing China sooner than previously estimated, according to the UN’s 2015 Revised World Population Prospect report. The estimates forecast a remarkable quickening of India’s population growth between 2015 and 2050, while China’s is projected to remain flat and then start declining. “Within seven years, the population of India is expected to surpass that of China,” said the new...

-Hindustan Times The picture of rural Indian life today that emerges from what is probably the world's largest study ever of household deprivation is sobering and sombre. It describes a massive hinterland still imprisoned in persisting endemic impoverishment, want, illiteracy and indeed hopelessness. It tells a story that every thinking and caring Indian must heed. Advocates of free markets, opposed to building a welfare state, have long argued that accelerated market-led economic...

-Hindustan Times It was a showpiece legislation when it was launched by the UPA government in 2009. The Right to Education, many hoped, would ensure a decent level of primary education to those who cannot afford expensive private education. The scheme started with much fanfare, but in a few years, reports started coming out that while enrolment in schools has shot up (almost 99% now), the quality of education has not...