-The Indian Express Poor quality government schools make higher education out of reach for non-elite . That’s the real problem, not public-funded universities. In his article, ‘Let the elite pay’ (IE, June 23), Surjit Bhalla argues for the continuation of the highly discriminatory school and higher education systems that already provide education to most on the basis of ability to pay. He acknowledges that “children of the poorest of the poor”do not...

-RuralIndiaOnline.org Imagine a democratic protest where a million farmers, labourers and others march to the capital and compel discussion of the exploding crisis of the countryside in a special three-week session of Parliament India’s agrarian crisis has gone beyond the agrarian. It’s a crisis of society. Maybe even a civilizational crisis, with perhaps the largest body of small farmers and labourers on earth fighting to save their livelihoods. The agrarian crisis is no...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Schoolchildren who engage more enthusiastically in classroom discussions and read stuff beyond textbooks are likelier to learn better than others, an analysis of the results of a survey has revealed. "Asking questions and participating in classroom discussions enhances the chances of better performance by 14.5 points," Indrani Bhaduri, head of the education survey division at the NCERT, said. (See chart)   "Reading newspapers, magazines, novels and other literature apart...

-Frontline.in The women-led climate-resilient farming model created by Swayam Shikshan Prayog in drought-hit Marathwada has yielded encouraging results and is worthy of emulation across the country. “LOOK at our quinoa. It has grown so well,” says a beaming Shailaja Narwade from Masia village near Solapur in interior Maharashtra. Shailaja has planted the traditional South American plant not for consumption but in order to harvest its seeds. “Quinoa seeds are very valuable...

-Civil Society News New Delhi: In 1974, Dr Samir Chaudhuri, a paediatrician working in Kolkata’s slums, founded Child in Need Institute (CINI) to tackle the many dimensions of child malnutrition. It struck him at the time that malnutrition wasn’t just a clinical problem but a complex phenomenon rooted in gender issues. Over the years, led by Dr Chaudhuri, CINI developed deep understanding of the social, economic and political underpinnings of malnutrition...