-The Hindustan Times Lawyer and education activist Ashok Aggarwal has spent over a decade challenging private schools that violate laws, cheat parents and deny students – especially the poor -- an opportunity to study. But two years after the Right to Education Act came into effect requiring private schools to set aside 25% free seats for students from economically weaker sections (EWS), Aggarwal isn’t worrying about the law’s implementation.   “Most top schools...

-The Hindu A 2012 WHO study ranks India third — behind Myanmar and Bangladesh — among countries that fail to provide health cover to people. A 2011 study reported in The Lancet on ‘Healthcare and equity’ confirms this: every year, at least 39 million people here fall into poverty due to private out-of-pocket health expenditure. A vast majority of Indians do not have access to healthcare or essential drugs. By the...

-The Hindu ‘Competitive bidding would favour private players, give rise to monopolies’ Even as the controversy over the Comptroller and Auditor-General’s (CAG) report on coal blocks allocation that reportedly caused a loss of Rs. 1.86 lakh crore to the national exchequer rages, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has said coal allocations and mining, in future, should be done through the public sector. In an article in party organ People’s Democracy, party general...

-The Hindu An anthology of independent evaluations of MGNREGA shows that it has provided income security, improved health, narrowed the gender gap and created useful assets   In the midst of the debates that prevail in this country over the feasibility of the world’s largest public works programme, the MGNREGA Sameeksha — an anthology of independent research studies and analysis on the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, from 2006-2012 — is...

-The Hindu “I seek the indulgence of the House… 3. …I want to assure Hon’ble Members that as the Minister in charge [for a part of the time covered by the report], I take full responsibility for the decisions of the Ministry. I wish to say that any allegations of impropriety are without basis and unsupported by the facts. 10. The observations of the CAG are clearly disputable. 11. The policy of allocation of...