-The Economist   The number of deaths among babies is declining The first 28 days of life are among the most vulnerable in a human’s existence. In 2009 3.3m children died before they were four weeks old, down from 4.6m in 1990, according to a new  paper from the World Health Organisation. However progress has been too slow to meet the fourth of the UN's Millennium Development Goals—to cut child mortality to one-third...

India should facilitate private sector growth in higher education, particularly in technical subjects, and should explore and develop innovative public-private partnerships (PPP) in the 12th Five-year Plan In a potential game-changer for India’s education sector, the Planning Commission has suggested that the country allow establishing institutes of higher learning that could be run for profit. “The not-for-profit tag in higher education sector should perhaps be re-examined in a more pragmatic manner so...

-PTI   India should move on to make nuclear energy as safe as possible by taking lessons from the recent Fukushima accident but its imperative to replace the old-era Land Acquisition Act with a more balanced one, to address the country's present huge infrastructure and energy needs, former Atomic Energy Commission Chairman M R Srinivasan said here. Stating that the resettlement was equally significant in any infrastructure project, he said India's record of...

While the rest of the world is saluting the birth of a miracle - the manifestation of the best of the human spirit in a peaceful movement that is uniting millions of people across religions, geographies and social and economic groups - Arundhati Roy has seized the opportunity to be intellectually irreverent. Sadly, her vituperative dismissal of this powerful human revolution in her piece, ‘I would rather not be Anna' published...

-The Indian Express   Having lost around 50 per cent male weavers to migration and schemes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the carpet industry in Bhadohi and surrounding areas now wants women to be trained as weavers. “Women weavers are more likely to stay put at homes, whether they are married or unmarried. So training them would be good investment,” said secretary All-India Carpet Manufacturers Association, Abdul Hazi. The...