A cure for India’s health care ills is within reach provided there is political will In most developed — and many developing — countries today, a 12-year school education and universal health coverage (UHC) are the two primary responsibilities of the state. India has failed miserably on both counts. Let us look at some of the problems of medical and health care: • Fifty years ago, when there was no commercialisation of...

-DNA Blind People’s Association (BPA) on Friday organised an awareness programme on Right to Education (RTE) for physically and mentally-challenged people. The programme involved 25 district coordinators of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, parents of the differently-abled children and a few teachers, who discussed about lack of awareness about RTE at grassroot level. The event consisted of various activities which discussed about admissions and special needs of differently-abled children. It highlighted problems faced by...

Universities should not have to bow to research institutes, writes Debashis Gangopadhyay. Basic Sciences versus Applied Sciences Undermining humanities studies in schools will lead to a large number of Science graduates in the market. This is a boon for multinational companies as profits will escalate — the cost of labour being lower. However, the danger to profits persist from another aspect. Students who study Science out of their love for a subject are...

-The Times of India All tourist operations within 5km of all 600 plus tiger reserves, national parks, sanctuaries and wildlife corridors in the country will soon have to fork out a minimum of 10% of their turnover as " local conservation fee", which will be used not only to protect wildlife areas but also provide financial assistance to communities and people living around these green patches.  The Union environment and forests ministry...

To replace ‘Dalit’ with ‘SC’, as the Thorat panel recommends, is to be inaccurate A commission led by S.K. Thorat, and charged with reviewing NCERT political Science textbooks in the wake of the cartoon controversy, has singled out a specific word in the text for removal. All instances of the word “Dalit”, it is recommended, should be replaced with “Scheduled Caste” (SC). The blogosphere is rife with speculation on the motivation...