-The Hindu A new website that will keep track of how far the RTE Act is being implemented RTE Forum, the 10,000 strong NGO and civil society platform working for the implementation of the RTE Act, has finally launched its website. As part of the RTE Forum’s agenda of formalising its structure, the website aims at strengthening the forum's existing state chapters and forming new ones. Mr. Ambarish Rai, RTE Forum National...

Rejecting the view that the cartoon in the Standard XII textbook, prepared by the NCERT, denigrated the anti-Hindi movement in Tamil Nadu, Yogendra Yadav, Senior Fellow, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, argued that the “book is one of the first attempts in the history of textbook writing in India to have given due prominence to the Dravidian Movement in post-Independent India.” “I am shocked and surprised to see that...

Of late, a childhood friend's 80-year-old mother has taken to writing. Emboldened by her single-mindedness, memories dulled by a lifetime of contingencies now respond readily to the daily rustle of pen on paper. One memory stands out in Surjit Kaur's mind. In 1957, as a fresh eyed schoolteacher from Delhi she went on an educational tour to Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal. It was 10 years after Independence...

-PTI The request came from a 10-year-old, but it put the government in a spot of bother. In February, Class VI student Aishwarya Parashar had filed an application under the Right to Information Act to the central public information officer in the Prime Minister’s office seeking a photocopy of the order through which Mahatma Gandhi was declared Father of the Nation. The PMO forwarded the application to the home ministry, which forwarded it...

-PTI   A query posted by a 10-year-old girl under the Right to Information Act (RTI) regarding father of nation status to Mahatma Gandhi has raised a piquant situation before the government. In February this year, Aishwarya Parashar, a class sixth student, sent an RTI application to the central public information officer of Prime Minister's office seeking a photocopy of the order through which Mahatma Gandhi was declared as father of the nation. From...