-Express News Service Hyderabad, New Delhi: The Andhra Pradesh High Court today quashed the 4.5 per cent sub-quota for minorities carved by the Centre out of the 27 per cent reservation for OBCs. A division bench comprising Chief Justice Madan Lokur and Justice P V Sanjay Kumar set aside the sub-quota while observing that the government’s decision was based on religious grounds and not any other consideration. The verdict may affect admissions that...

Soon, the country’s estimated 40 million people with disabilities will be able to track job opportunities at the click of a mouse. www.jobability.org will be launched tomorrow at a national conference on livelihood for persons with disability held by business chamber Ficci. The site is designed to be friendly for the disabled and will be exclusively for use by such people. The portal, the first such initiative in South Asia that...

-The Hindu All India Confederation of SC, ST Organisations, State unit, is organising a national seminar here on June 17 to discuss implementation of reservations for Dalits in private sector and higher judiciary. The seminar would also review recent Supreme Court's judgement against reservations in promotions. The meeting would be presided over by Udit Raj, who had earlier rallied SCs, STs across the country at Ramlila Grounds in New Delhi when the...

A parliamentary panel has sought to put strict safeguards on the government’s powers to acquire land and recommended that no plot under cultivation be taken away unless as a last resort. The recommendation — one of many on the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011 — seeks to give a leg-up to food security, but if accepted, could pose a challenge to the expansion of industries. “The concept of food security...

Recently, the Indian Council of Social Science Research, the highest body that funds and guides the social sciences in India, has initiated an in-house debate about the current state and the future prospects of such research. What is the quality of work that has come out of our universities and research institutes over the past 10-20 years? Which new areas of inquiry deserve more time, money and attention in the...