If India is an aspiring society, education is perhaps the quickest vehicle of social mobility. Right to Education (RTE) is a supplyside intervention by the government that will make education cheaper and, in the process, every child will get a chance to be educated. But an approach that focuses on availability of schools, getting children to the classroom and getting them taught by reasonably well-trained teachers is not enough. Retention...

The mask is off. Team Anna and his lieutenants are batting for the BJP On 30 October last year, when Mohan Bhagwat claimed that Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement was actually supported by the RSS, the remark conveyed palpable nervousness and attracted criticism from Team Anna. Three months later, as Team Anna launches its voters’ awareness campaign in UP, there is not even an attempt to keep its secular mask intact. The mask,...

-Express News Service The Orissa State Scheduled Caste-Scheduled Tribe Youth and students’ Council has drawn the attention of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) about the increasing torture of the dalits in the State. Council president Haladhar Sethi discussed the matter with NCSC chairman PL Punia and invited him to visit Kamadhenukot village in Dhenkanal district where 22 houses of the dalits were burnt after the first phase of the panchayat...

Iqbal Masud, the civil servant and critic, supported the ban on The Satanic Verses in 1989. His reason was simple: if the book remained on sale in India, Muslims would march in protest, policemen would fire upon them, some of them would die, and no book, said Masud, was worth the life of a single protester. There were, he allowed, legitimate arguments to be made about incitement, about mobs marching against...

-The Times of India   Education minister Brij Kishor Sharma said that the Right to Education Act will be strictly implemented in the state in order to improve quality of education. However, he said that dialogues are open with private and public schools to maintain their structural set-up. The minister came to Ajmer on Thursday to participate in the convocation of Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education held at Jawahar Rang Manch. Overall, 205...