-The Economic Times The Rajya Sabha on Tuesday passed an amendment to the Right to Education Act. The amendment will widen the beneficiary net for disabled children and provide those with severe disability the option of receiving education at home. It will also give school management committees an advisory role in minority schools, both aided and unaided, and will put madarsas and vedic schools and other institutions providing primarily religious instruction outside...

The speed and determination with which the Tamil Nadu government has been slapping its citizens right, left and centre with colonial-era laws, it would seem as if a full-fledged war of independence is raging in the fishing villages of Idinthakarai and Kudankulam along the coast of Tamil Nadu. According to findings by a team led senior journalist Sam Rajappa, in just four months between September (when the protest movement against the...

-The Hindu   We condemn the attack by the Maoists on April 21 near Kerlapal village in Sukma District in Chhattisgarh, in which they killed two security guards and abducted the Sukma District Collector, Alex Paul Menon. At the time of this attack, Mr. Menon, accompanied by the security guards, was in the process of conducting Gram Swaraj Abhiyaan across the district. A few hours prior to the attack, Mr. Menon had to...

Do psychiatry patients have the right to access records of their treatment? While the Central Information Commission (CIC) directed a mental health hospital to provide this information to a patient, the hospital has moved court citing confidentiality. The Delhi High Court has given the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS) a stay order against disclosing the information till the next hearing in September. The case pertains to a 32-year-old married...

There is evidence to show that growth is slowly becoming inclusive. But for the quality of life to improve, incomes must be complemented by infrastructure. For close to at least five years now inclusive growth has had a central place in the official discourse on the economy. The UPA II has itself worn its self-proclaimed success in delivering an inclusive growth as a badge of its effectiveness, not to mention its...