-The Telegraph Teachers have backed a proposal to make aspiring civil servants’ English marks relevant to final selection but opposed suggested curbs to their freedom to write the other papers in their regional languages. The proposed reforms, notified by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on March 5 for introduction this year, are being held in abeyance by the Centre following an uproar in Parliament. An expert panel had recommended the changes, one...

-The Hindu Widespread criticism of the changes notified recently by the Union Public Service Commission involving the language component in the Civil Services examination has forced the Union government to put those plans on hold pending review. The “language bias” allegation that has been made by almost all the detractors is centred on the perception that English has been given a more prominent place in the scheme of things compared to...

-The Hindu ‘Need for effective time-bound grievance redressal mechanism to deal with violations that are happening on the ground’ A study on implementation of the Right to Education Act in Delhi in three years of its existence has revealed “overwhelming violations’’ of the norms on the ground. The study by NGO Josh, with support of VSO India, has noted that while “73 per cent of the schools had contract teachers’’, in 99 per...

-The Telegraph An expert panel has suggested three ways of comparing students’ marks across 26 Class XII boards for admission to about 40 central institutions, amid indications that a percentile-based matching may be approved. One of the other options is based on the calculation of a board’s mean score, and the third on the determination of the mean as well as the standard deviation (a statistical concept), sources told this newspaper. They added...

-The Economic Times India may have policy of preferring free and open source applications, but still the world's largest software maker Microsoft and others, including Adobe, Norton and McAfee, have managed to weasel their way into some of the largest government purchases in the country's history. Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan are in the process of procuring over eight million laptops preloaded with proprietary software in clear violation of India's national...