-The Telegraph An NCERT survey has found children from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes lagging behind in education at the primary school level amid a national debate on reservation in promotions for them. The National Achievement Survey, conducted to evaluate the learning achievement of Class V students, found SC/ST students underperforming compared to general students (see chart). Over a lakh students from 6,602 schools in 27 states and four Union Territories were...

-Live Mint NAC wants Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna to be absorbed into new policy for universal health coverage  The National Advisory Council (NAC), which sets the policy agenda for the Congress party led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, wants the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY) insurance scheme to be absorbed into the new policy for universal health coverage (UHC), taking the latter closer to realization.   This is part of the government’s bid to move...

Industrialisation of agriculture creates hunger and malnutrition, destroying the food web to which we all belong. Hunger and malnutrition is manmade. It is in the design of the industrial chemical model of agriculture. And just as hunger has been created by design, producing healthy and nutritious food for all can be designed through food democracy. That is what we do in Navdanya. That is what the diverse movements for food sovereignty...

-Outlook A labour survey underway in Bihar has indicated that outflow of labourers from the state in search of livelihood has further gone down from earlier estimates of 30 per cent on account of development works being carried out in the state. Preliminary reports emanating from the survey suggests a drastic arrest in exodus of workers mainly from districts like Saharsa, Madhubani, Katihar and Purnea in the state. These areas had earlier witnessed...

-Frontline A study finds that institutional support alone cannot help reduce maternal mortality in India.  THE high rate of maternal mortality in India has been a cause for national concern, especially on account of the focus on reaching the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Although there is a growing realisation that it will be difficult to meet the MDG targets by that deadline, there is a renewed interest in the...