Computers in primary school classrooms are not inherently a good thing I read with interest the report on the Central Advisory Board of Education on the use of technology in education, and broadly agree with their conclusion that computers should not enter the classroom until upper primary school level. The modern fascination with new technology makes me think of what Henry David Thoreau said: “Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys,...

-The Telegraph Mamata Banerjee’s suggestion that the government should keep away from land acquisition for private industry has got the backing of a parliamentary standing committee, which has suggested that private enterprises buy plots on their own. The National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, which was introduced in Parliament last year by rural development minister Jairam Ramesh, had laid down that the government could acquire land only for a “public...

Jatav residents of Ramgarh in U.P. resist attempts by members of a powerful community to grab their land by violent means. IN what could be considered one of the worst incidents of vendetta against Dalits in the National Capital Region (NCR), members of the Dalit Jatav community were beaten up brutally by some members of the dominant Gujjar community in Ramgarh village in the Greater Noida area of Uttar Pradesh...

A universal pension scheme for social protection must be part of a broader strategy of economic expansion different from the present neoliberal order. INDIA must be one of the worst countries in the world in terms of not providing even minimal social security for most of its people. This is not just a major failure of the development project in the country – it is also a significant cause of...

On February 9, 2010, the then Minister of Environment and Forests, Government of India, Jairam Ramesh, imposed an indefinite moratorium on the introduction of Bt Brinjal in India. It is necessary and desirable to quote the order verbatim. It reads as follows: It is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary based approach and impose a moratorium on the release of Bt Brinjals till such time independent scientific studies establish, to...