If we get it right, the Food Security Bill carries the potential to alter the destinies of millions of India's poor and disadvantaged people, by assuring them as a legal right sufficient food to live with dignity. It was approved by the Cabinet after over two years of intense, sometimes fractious debate. Opinion in the Cabinet itself was reportedly divided around the proposed law. Gaping divisions persist, even as the...
More »SEARCH RESULT
RTE headache for budget schools in slums by Sugandha Pathak
The 25 per cent admission quota for children from poor families in Right to Education Act (RTE) has thrown up an avoidable headache for budget private schools in underprivileged areas. Managements of such schools say the regulation is not required as far as they are concerned. Budget private schools are low-cost private schools providing education to children from slums and rural areas. “We welcome the RTE Act; I think it should have happened...
More »Food Security Bill tabled in Lok Sabha by Aarti Dhar
The much-awaited National Food Security Bill, 2011, which makes cheaper foodgrains a legal entitlement to 63.5 per cent of the country's population, was tabled in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. The Bill was introduced by Food Minister K.V. Thomas in the presence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who has been keen on ensuring that the law is enacted. It seeks to “provide food and nutritional security by ensuring access to adequate...
More »Inclusive growth: Malnutrition-education link by DP Chaudhri & Raghbendra Jha
The approach paper for the 12th Five-Year Plan with focus on faster, sustained and inclusive growth is candid and forward-looking. On poverty reduction, the document notes, without comment, the annual trend decline of 0.8% accelerating to 1% during 2004-05 to 2009-10, against a promised target of 2% in the 11th Plan. It emphasises that India will easily meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of halving poverty by 2015, over 25...
More »Education experts pitch for major changes in RTE Act by Rashmi R Parida
The goals of the Right to Education (RTE) Act are unrealistic and unachievable in its entirety education experts and policymakers said at a conference here today, and endorsed the need for more dialogues with civil society, government agencies and educational service providers to bring the landmark legislation to fruition. There is an imperative need to look afresh into the RTE Act, iron out its ambiguities and...
More »