-The Indian Express The Haryana state government had turned down a suggestion to drop the educational criteria In a first, the Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a new law in Haryana, mandating minimum educational qualification as a pre-requisite for the candidates contesting panchayat polls. A bench led by Justice J Chelameswar dismissed a batch of petitions that had challenged the validity of the amendment in the pertinent law. The court ruled that the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the Haryana panchayati raj law stipulating Educational qualifications for contesting the forthcoming local polls, which according to the petitioners created an insurmountable barrier for an overwhelming majority of women and Dalits. After hearing senior advocate Kirti Singh, a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and A M Sapre stayed the Haryana Panchayati Raj (Amendment) Act, 2015, which mandated Educational qualifications for...

-The Times of India With the introduction of a minimum educational qualification to contest panchayat elections, an overwhelming majority of the rural population in Haryana and Rajasthan rural population has been effectively barred from contesting. In Haryana the minimum qualification is matriculation for unreserved seats while it is class eighth for seats reserved for women and scheduled caste candidates. Census 2011 data shows that only 16% of the rural population aged 20 or...

-The Hindu Despite a big increase in college attendance, especially among women, fewer than one out of every 10 Indians is a graduate, new Census data show. Over the weekend, the office of the Census Commissioner and Registrar-General of India released new numbers on the level of education achieved by Indians as of 2011. They show that with 6.8 crore graduates and above, India still has more than six times as many illiterates. While...

-The Times of India PATNA: Over 1,400 primary schoolteachers have resigned till date apprehending legal action for allegedly taking the job on fake educational certificates. "We expect more teachers to resign by July 9, the deadline set for doing so to escape punishment," said Vinodanand Jha, OSD to principal secretary, education department, on Thursday. The resignations follow the Patna high court directive to the state government on Monday last week to ask...