-The Hindu   Health problems apart, they have little time for family "My father comes home very late. He never attends school-day functions or parent-teacher meetings. There has hardly been a weekend when he took us out..." This is how children of police personnel responded at a family counselling session, organised by the Madurai district police recently. Many children complained that their parents working in the Police department were stressed out most of the...

-The Hindu   The government needs to open its eyes and realise that the technological utopia it envisions in the low-cost tablet is no cure for poor education, poverty or inequality The last few days have brought the Aakash tablet back into the media limelight. Last Friday, Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister M.M. Pallam Raju said that troubles with the manufacturer could doom the project. But the next day, former HRD Minister Kapil...

-The Hindu   A helpline in Odisha is empowering students to act as watchdogs to monitor implementation of the RTE Act, which completes three years in April "My teacher does not come to school," speaks a little voice on one end of the phone line. At the other end, a woman responds reassuringly, asking for the child's details - name of the school, the district. Within a matter of days, the ‘teacher' is...

-The Indian Express Less than a year after it ratified the legal status of the Right To Education (RTE) Act, the Supreme Court has held it "appropriate" for a Constitution Bench to test yet again the constitutional validity of the social welfare legislation enacted with Constitutional amendments. A Bench, led by Justice K S Radhakrishnan, last week ordered for placing a petition moved by a bunch of Karnataka-based institutions before the Chief...

-The Business Standard Govt must recognise that RTE is not working as it should There is little doubt that one of the most crucial tasks of the Indian state at present is to ensure that its young people receive an education sufficient to meet their aspirations. Given India's demographic profile, it could well end up with an under-educated generation if it does not scale up its educational infrastructure and effectiveness of policy....