Experts fear that schools will begin forcing children with disabilities to stay at home with the “study from home” clause passed under the RTE amendment bill by the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. This amendment adds children with disability to the definition of “disadvantaged groups” and will now be a part of the 25 per cent reservation for the Economically Weaker Section category, under the Right to Education Act. The bill...

At Old Seelampur, an impoverished neighbourhood in Northeast Delhi, rows of hollowed-out computer monitors line a dingy lane. On another street here, room after room on either side is piled high with dusty keyboards and metallic innards of computers and other electronic goods. Welcome to the wasteland of India’s urban refuse. Here, heaps of electronic waste — or e-waste as it is more commonly referred to — wait to be dismantled...

The National Advisory Council will ask the Centre to focus the ongoing socio-economic caste census on enumerating and classifying denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, or DNTs. The plan is to give these groups priority while issuing unique identity cards and introducing laws that will grant them explicit recognition on the lines of the 1992 statute on minorities. The NAC said special directives must be issued to the housing and urban poverty alleviation...

The Supreme Court's recent mandate that private unaided non-minority schools should reserve 25 per cent of seats for underprivileged children is being hailed as a landmark ruling. The spirit of the decision is indeed laudable as it reflects the egalitarian ethos of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. Thus, as private schools open their doors to children from marginalised sections of society, the government pats itself on the back for...

A fourth of school students will need to be from less-privileged sections of society following an SC ruling on the RTE Act. While this can bring in social transformation, there are implementation challenges. Educationists share some solutions with Labonita Ghosh  Problem 1: WHO WILL FOOT THE BILL?  The government has offered to pay for the 25% of less-privileged students who will now have to be admitted into private schools, but it's not...