-Economic and Political weekly Drawing on the research on basic education in West Bengal, this essay argues the case for a much criticised public education system, which needs to be reconsidered as regards its potential as a provider of quality education, even while addressing its many failings. The essay follows an approach, both critical and constructive, that underlines the collective onus of the public in realising the value of the public...

-The Hindu Efforts of Jairam and Jyotiraditya to talk them out of it fail Dhanalakshmi, a 22-year-old from the Paliyar hill tribe of Tamil Nadu, is a long way from home. At 7 a.m. on Wednesday, she will join about 60,000 other landless poor, Adivasis and Dalits who have streamed into Gwalior from all parts of the country for a padayatra to the national capital, to present the demand that each of...

-Outlook Amid furore over FDI in multi-brand retail, the politicians and farmers in the leading agrarian state of Punjab are speaking in different voices over the issue. While Chief Minister Parkash Singh BaDal said the concept may be successful in developed countries like USA, he feared that it may not work in this country. "If the FDI comes, big players will eat into the share of small traders and that will be against...

-The Times of India INDORE: Thousands of passengers on the Delhi-Mumbai trunk route are risking their lives daily by travelling on trains barrelling down the 120-year-old Bhairavgarh bridge in Ratlam, declared "distressed" eight years ago. Railway engineers had certified the bridge unsafe in 2003-04 and sought immediate repairs for it to sustain the pressure of the 50-odd trains pounding down every day, including the Rajdhani, August Kranti, Golden Temple, Duronto, and Sampark...

-The Telegraph Fifty-two thousand underprivileged children of Jamshedpur and Gamharia in adjoining Seraikela-Kharsawan went without midday meal on Thursday, a cruel fallout of the Bharat Bandh that forced Jharkhand to stay indoors on Thursday. The success of the bandh meant that either government or aided schools eligible for midday meals stayed shut or BJP workers and other protesters on the road stopped drivers from ferrying food to cradles from the centralised kitchen...