-The Times of India   HRD minister Kapil Sibal on Wednesday expressed concern about the failure of big states in implementing the Right to Education Act. He was speaking at the state education ministers' conference on chalking out a community mobilization programme for RTE. "It will be a historic failure, if we have passed the Act but not implemented." Sibal said. So far, 20 states have notified RTE rules. However, big states like...

In the brown smog that covers Manesar this late autumn, large trucks that pack half-a-dozen cars each into their containers queue on the broken highway from Delhi to Jaipur and park any which way they can. Their drivers loll in the teashops and dhabas. Few know when their containers will be loaded with Maruti Suzuki’s deliverables: cars named Swift and Dzire and A-Star and Sx4 that have been booked by tens...

-The Hindu   Talks brokered by Gurgaon district administration are expected to continue today   The first day of talks between the management and striking workers of Maruti Suzuki India Limited's Manesar plant on Monday, brokered by the Gurgaon district administration, did not yield a breakthrough even as the strike entered its 11th day. The talks are expected to continue on Tuesday. Meanwhile, thousands of workers demonstrated outside the Deputy Labour Commissioner's office in Gurgaon...

-The Hindu   The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed all States and Union Territories to build toilets, particularly for girls, in all government schools by the end of November. A Bench headed by Justice D.K. Jain asked all governments to take immediate steps for this and file their compliance report before the deadline fixed by it. In case of any problem, the governments will at least provide temporary toilets for the students by November-end...

IT IS one of the inspirational legends of Indian journalism that James Hickey, founder and editor of the Bengal Gazette — this country’s first newspaper, with its first edition going back to January 1780 — was a fearless seeker of the truth, taken to court and imprisoned by Warren Hastings, then governor-general. Reality is a little different. Hickey’s paper was often a gossipy, yellow rag. It thought nothing of publishing scurrilous...