-The Times of India The building of school infrastructure as per norms set by the Right to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, is moving at a rather slow pace in the neighbouring Satara district. This, despite the substantial financial allocations made through the central government's Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) programme. An independent assessment of 146 schools across Satara district, carried out by the New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research (CPR), has...

Ramaswamy R. Iyer, former Secretary, Union Ministry of Water Resources, has been a consistent critic of the idea of interlinking rivers (ILR). In this interview, he shares his concerns about the Supreme Court's judgment directing the government to implement the project, and explains why it is deeply flawed. Excerpts In your article in “The Hindu”, you have claimed that the government's stand on the project is ambiguous. The amicus curiae has,...

Tamil Nadu was home to the highest percentage of widowed/divorced or separated (WDS) individuals in India in 2010 (8.8%) while Delhi had the lowest (4.1%). Maharashtra figured in both the top five lists of highest percentage of WDS overall and females. The percentage of WDS females was almost three times that of men (2.9% against 10%). Altogether, 7% of the population aged 10 and above were either widowed, divorced or separated in...

-The Telegraph The state food and civil supplies department has during an internal audit detected a Rs 35-crore “scam” involving advance paid to 17 companies by the West Bengal Essential Commodities Supply Corporation Limited. State food and civil supplies minister Jyotipriya Mullick today handed over the audit report for the 2004-05 accounts to chief minister Mamata Banerjee. “An internal audit carried out by the department has revealed that Rs 35.86 crore was paid...

When the fledgling Indian government drafted its higher education policy after Independence, it formed two separate tiers for teaching and research: colleges and universities in one, exclusive research establishments in the other. The intention was of the noblest, to deploy our best talent exclusively to create an indigenous knowledge pool; in particular, to provide research input for the nation’s development. Sixty years down the line, the outcome has patently failed those...