-The Telegraph   Stress strikes the pupils of a Murshidabad school every day not because of impenetrable syllabus or unsparing teachers but because they fear the Padma river can rise up and engulf them any minute. All it took for a wave of panic to crash in today was the rattle of tin cans on a truck and an exclamation from a teacher, which triggered a stampede in which 20 children were injured. The...

Minority welfare schemes should target not districts but smaller units like hamlets and urban wards so that nobody passes under the radar, Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council has told the Centre. The Centre’s 15-point programme for minorities, based on Sachar Committee recommendations, aims at multi-sector development in 90 districts with large minority populations. But the council believes this approach misses many who most need help while many non-minority residents reap indirect...

At a time when the government is willing to pump thousands of crores for the revival of national carrier Air India, the finance ministry has rejected railways' plea for a temporary loan of Rs 2,101 crore to fund its development works.  Turning down the loan request, the ministry has the asked state-run transporter, which is under acute financial stress, to meet its liabilities by raising resources.  Railways made the demand considering negative...

Thin, shy and already balding, his glasses threatening to fall off his nose at every movement, Mohammed Mobashshir Sarwar doesn’t quite look the teen rebel. Yet, at 17, he already has 100 Right to Information (RTI) applications under his belt, all directed at his state-run school, whose management he is now battling in high court for expelling him. Man of a few words he may be, but Sarwar has had no problem...

Notification of rules is a step forward, but a lot more needs to be done A bunch of children selling toys at a traffic signal, small boys cleaning tables at restaurants or washing glasses at tea shops or little girls engaged as baby sitters – the effective implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, will possibly make such instances a thing of the past. However, for...