-The Hindu Funds from Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan are pumped into ‘schools' in Bastar that don't exist On the day the Chhattisgarh government issued a statement emphasising how the Prime Minister's adviser, T.K.A. Nair, praised the efforts to educate children, 32 students of Koynapada primary school in Darbha block in Bastar district did not attend school. In fact, they could not as the school does not exist. An official confirmed that the disappearance...

As the challenge of global warming looms large, the importance of climate resilient agriculture (CRA) gets recognized by both scientific and farming communities. Countries like India are expected to be intensely affected by climate change since majority of the population is primarily dependent on agriculture for livelihood. CRA, encompassing adaptation and mitigation strategies and the effective use of biodiversity at all levels-genes, species and ecosystems-should, therefore, be India's response towards...

-IPS News UNITED NATIONS- When the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reach their deadline in 2015, there will still be a critical setback: millions of people in the developing world without full access to safe drinking water, proper sanitation and electricity in their homes. Conscious of this shortcoming, the 193-member General Assembly hosted a two-day high-level meeting, which concluded Wednesday, to address three thematic issues: water, sanitation and sustainable energy, specifically in...

-Down to Earth The country accounts for 29 per cent of the global deaths of newborns on their first day of birth In spite of reducing child mortality, deaths of infants in India on the first day of birth is still way too high and likely to hamper it from achieving the millennium development goal for curbing infant mortality rate (IMR) In 2012, as many as 1.013 million babies died on the...

-The Telegraph Ranchi: If in 2010, half of Jharkhand's Class V children in government schools could read Class II textbooks, only 34 fifth graders out of 100 could do so in 2013. But don't blame the child, blame the lack of teachers. The standard of Jharkhand's state-run schools is plummeting through the years, says Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2013, prepared by NGO Pratham, which annually undertakes an assessment of the...