They narrate their accounts of pain and humiliation “We will never again go back to that life of shame and indignity” Provide quota for community in higher education: Aruna Roy The capital's Constitution Club resounded on Monday to cries of “Jai Bhim” as a huge gathering of former manual scavengers rose as one to demand an apology from the government for the wrongs done to the community. “Apologise now for the violation of...

A meticulous study of the agrarian relations in three villages. ONE of our senior sociologists once drew my attention to the distinction between economics and other social sciences. Other social sciences – sociology and anthropology, for instance – he said, pay a great deal of attention to gathering primary data and interpreting them, whereas economics relies on secondary data for its analysis. This is, to a large extent, a fair...

The National Advisory Council (NAC), which recently approved subsidised food for 75 per cent of population, has entrusted the task of drafting the Food Security Bill with a Working Group on food security for the consideration of the Council meeting, slated for November 26. The NAC working committee, while finalising the details of the Bill, will also look into proposals for introducing some reforms in the PDS system to efficiently carry...

All school children across the country will soon have unique identification numbers (UID) which will help in tracking their movement in educational institutions and academic records. This follows the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Union Human Resource Development Ministry and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) here on Wednesday. The system will help in tracking students' mobility by creating an electronic registry, right from the primary level through...

Even as the Centre is yet to firm up its view about screening of children for admission in residential schools, Andhra Pradesh has successfully given admission to 50,000 children in 600 state government-run residential schools without any entrance test and following the Right to Education Act in letter and spirit. Andhra residential schools, which have been consistently producing good results, have even given reservation higher than 25% stipulated under the RTE...