-The Indian Express Education outcomes may have declined under the RTE, but scrapping the no-detention policy is not the answer. In the five years since the potentially transformative Right to Education Act (RTE) was implemented, several studies have documented the decline and stagnation of learning levels in school. The Annual Status of Education Reports have painted a dismal picture. Most children emerge from primary school lacking even rudimentary arithmetic and reading...

-Livemint.com Raman Singh govt requests Centre for nearly Rs4,000 crore in assistance to carryout relief operations New Delhi: Chhattisgarh has become the sixth state to declare a drought and the fourth so far to seek central aid. The state government said that 25 of its 27 districts have been drought-hit. Earlier, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh declared a drought in 110 of their districts. “Based on a prima facie Evaluation, the cabinet...

-The Hindu An Evaluation of the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY) has concluded that the government-financed health insurance scheme had little or no impact on medical impoverishment in India. In fact, the study found that despite high enrolment in RSBY, catastrophic health expenditures (when medical expenses push a family into poverty), hospitalisation expenditure and the percentage of total household outgo on out-of-pocket (OOP) expenses — medicines and other consumables that are not...

-IPSNews.net UNITED NATIONS: When the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics to Professor Angus Deaton of Princeton University, the accolade had a significant relevance to the United Nations. The Academy bestowed the honour on the British-born Deaton, 69, primarily for his analysis of consumption, poverty and welfare.   Deaton’s research reflects some of the socio-economic issues on the U.N. agenda, including poverty alleviation, economic inequalities, consumption patterns, household...

-DNA The Centre has always claimed that the country has a robust regulatory mechanism Busting the claims of the Indian government and scientists that the country has a robust regulatory mechanism to test genetically modified (GM) crops, toxic loopholes are emerging. From 2008 to 2014, only 39 of the 133 GM crop field trials were properly monitored, leaving the rest for unknown risks and possible health hazards to common people. Documents accessed...