Thirty years ago, in an act I still feel guilty about, I woke up a very great Indian from his sleep. I was volunteering at a conference in New Delhi, and had been asked to fetch the Member of Parliament from Dhanbad, AK Roy, from his quarters in Vithalbhai Patel House. Roy, a labour leader legendary for his integrity and his wide range of reading, had been elected from the...

Private unaided schools do not seem too upbeat about implementation of the new Right To Education. The School Action Committee (SAC) – an umbrella body of four school associations in the city – made it clear on Thursday that the burden of accommodating 25%EWS students for free was "too much" for private schools. They said the schools would now be forced to increase fee for other students. SAC is also...

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday sought a response from the Delhi government on a PIL requesting quashing of nursery admission guidelines framed by the government on the grounds that they violated the Right to Education Act. The court also issued a notice to the Centre and asked for its reply within six weeks. The next date of hearing on the matter is in March next year. The PIL was filed...

The Bengal government today pushed through a controversial bill that will empower the state panchayat department to create a parallel school education system with nearly 20,000 rural schools. The West Bengal Panchayat Board of Education Bill had fuelled widespread concern at its conception itself but the Left government bulldozed the legislation through the Assembly today in the face of a walkout by the combined Opposition. At the root of the overdrive appears...

A Public Interest Litigation was filed in the Delhi High Court on Monday seeking quashing of the nursery admission guidelines framed by the Delhi Government. The PIL contends that the guidelines violate the Right to Education Act. The PIL was filed by a civil rights group Social Jurist. Challenging the government notification’s validity, its lawyer Ashok Agarwal said the move giving private schools a free hand to formulate their own admission criteria...