-The Daily Bhaskar   Sarpanchs and secretaries in Damoh, on Friday, have threatened to stall work under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) protesting administration's decision to seek details via text messaging of the daily work being undertaken. The sarpanchs have said this was unjustified as it would incur additional financial burden. They added as many of them were not tech-savvy, they would not know how to message. However, district...

Two years after the Right to Education Act (RTE) was passed, things are finally falling into place. As schools go about implementing the Act, the state education department is doing its bit to help out: On Wednesday, its Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan conducted training sessions for teachers at 10 schools in six wards. "The idea is to equip our teachers with teaching aides which will help them understand Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation and...

Some time ago, newspapers in Britain carried full-page advertisements from the curiously named British Pig Association. This consortium of pig farmers was clamouring publicly that the supermarket chains were squeezing the farmers dry. Alongside them, Britain’s dairy farmers complained that a supermarket cartel was paring down their prices, while production costs went up and up. These farmers too have powerful lobbies; they are still in business. To this end, Britain, like...

They are known to enjoy the privileges, but even the railways was not prepared for what essentially was a technical error on their part. Forced to board a second class AC compartment in the capital-bound Patna Rajdhani after the railways could not arrange for an additional first AC rake, 18 MPs from Bihar created a ruckus at Mughalsarai junction on Tuesday night. As a result, the train was stuck at...

The Union minister for communications and information technology, Kapil Sibal, is a knowledgeable lawyer, and someone who is reportedly committed to the freedom of speech. He would not lightly propose regulations that contravene Article 19(1)(a) (freedom of speech and expression) of our Constitution. So how is one to explain his recent proposals on controlling online speech? Or even the immoderate IT Rules that have been in force since April? This controversy...