Launched 20 years ago with the simple line that "people are the real wealth of a nation", the United Nations' Human Development Report has become the most trusted annual indicator of progress in developing nations. The 20th anniversary report charts progress going back 20 years before that first publication - so it is an ambitious attempt to chart development achievements - or not - going back 40 years. The UN Development Programme's...

In a bid to stall the contentious Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, the Trinamool Congress has demanded a detailed discussion in the Lok Sabha before the legislation and the accompanying Resettlement and Rehabilitation Bill are taken up for consideration in the winter session. The Trinamool Congress, which has expressed major reservations on the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, put forward this demand at a meeting of Lok Sabha Business Advisory Committee (BAC) on...

Total primary education programme for school dropouts in 15-50 age group Education and Cultural Affairs Minister M.A. Baby on Sunday launched a new informal literacy programme which he claimed would gather momentum to become a mass movement in line with the highly successful ‘literacy movement' of the past. The initiative, ‘Athulyam', is a total primary education programme which has a series of linked schemes that aim to re-educate primary school dropouts. The first...

The Cabinet on Wednesday decided to restore the tribal land allegedly encroached by a windmill company at Attappady in Palakkad district. Those who fabricated documents for facilitating the encroachment would be prosecuted. The Cabinet also decided to institute a comprehensive Vigilance inquiry into the alleged involvement of officials of various departments in the alienation of the tribal land. Briefing the media on the Cabinet decisions, Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan said the inquiry...

To standardise implementation of the Right to Education Act (RTE) and to dispel misconceptions surrounding it, the government has decided to issue a rulebook to schools across Maharashtra with easy to follow guidelines. Though it was introduced in 2009, the state has now devised the draft rules to simplify the jargon-loaded Act. “Many schools have misunderstood the Act or are confused about its implementation. Earlier, we had issued government regulations (GRs) that...