In a remote Indian village in the Western state of Maharashtra, a fourth-grader named Suraj Balu Zore proudly told IPS that he can now effortlessly operate a laptop computer. Fallen by the wayside of urban India’s information technology (IT) superhighway, Khairat village – located just 80 kilometres from booming Mumbai – still has no access to the Internet.  But thanks to the recent efforts of ‘one laptop per child’ – a project...

A retired IPS officer in Bihar JK Sinha has set up a free English-medium residential school to educate 200 young Musahar boys. It's a big step for the tribe which is one of the state's most backward communities. Every morning, the national anthem instills pride and courage in 120 inmates of the residential school. One of the students Pankaj said, "This school gives us all the basic amenities that a...

-The Telegraph   Nearly four dozen deemed universities, found unfit for the tag by a review panel two years ago, have got no respite from another committee that was set up under Supreme Court instructions to re-examine their deficiencies. A three-member panel of current and former HRD ministry officials heard each of the 44 varsities deemed “unworthy” of the label and decided not to differ from what the review panel had said. The ministry...

-IANS   In order to promote personal hygene among young rural girls, Tamil Nadu launched distribution of free sanitary napkins to girls in the age group of 10 to 19 in all the villages. In a statement issued here Friday by the government, Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa has ordered distribution of free sanitary napkins to young girls as well as lactating mothers and women prisoners across the state at an annual outlay of...

India has achieved close to universal enrolment. The small proportion of children who are still out of school, the hardest to reach, will be pulled in by the efforts emanating from the Right to Education (RTE) Act. Now we must focus on the next challenge, a massive and less visible one, that of ensuring that every child gets an effective education of good quality. Schools must give children a real...