The “committee” promised by the Goalpara administration to clear the paltry sum of Rs 200 to fund midday meals in Belpara primary school in the district has not materialised yet, leaving its 40 students in the lurch. The promise came on June 12, almost a month after the May 13 abduction of the school’s headmaster, Kameshwar Rabha, and another teacher by suspected GNLA militants while they duo were riding back home...

-PTI The Maoist are recruiting and indoctrinating children and had constituted children's squads and associations as part of mass mobilisation, a UN report said. The annual report of the UN secretary-general on children and armed conflict, submitted to the Security Council last week, said information has been received on recruitment and use of children by Naxalites, particularly in Chhattisgarh and some districts in adjoining states. "Maoist armed groups were recruiting and indoctrinating children,...

A narrow education is making engineers oblivious to the importance of human interaction and raising the cost of even simple tasks My time in South Asia has rewarded me with an enigma: why is engineering so expensive here? Why is it often many times more expensive than in Australia, my home? My search for answers led me to shanty towns on the fringes of mega-cities. We compared an award winning Indian factory...

John Vidal, who was in Rio for the '92 Earth summit, looks back at that momentous event, and how the 2012 version compares Helicopters thundered up and down the chic Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. Tanks guarded the bridges and tunnels. The favelas were in lockdown, schools closed and supermarkets stood empty. Unexpectedly, George H W Bush, the 41st US president, flush with success at the collapse of communism, had arrived in...

-The Hindustan Times Two years ago, nine-year-old Vishal got beaten up real bad by the class bullies at the government school in Lal Kuan in south Delhi. The bullies also tore up some of his school texts and threw away others. After that day, a petrified Vishal just couldn’t muster up enough courage to go back to school. Worse still, he couldn’t tell his parents — Radhe Shyam and Manju — about...