-AFP PATNA: Thousands of school children were refusing free meals in Bihar, fearful of being poisoned, after 22 children died from eating lunch apparently contaminated with insecticide, officials said on Thursday. The children, aged four to 12, died after eating lentils, vegetables and rice cooked at a village school in Bihar on Tuesday, sparking violent protests and an investigation into the cause. Some 30 children remain ill in hospitals in the state capital...

-The Hindu The fatal consequences of having a routine midday meal for at least 22 children in Bihar's Saran district expose the chronic neglect of school education in a large part of India. That governments cannot find a small piece of land for a school and are unable to store food materials without the risk of contamination is a telling commentary on their commitment to universal primary education. The Bihar horror...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Bihar's midday meal tragedy is a case of the state not heeding the advice of monitoring institutions that have been warning HRD ministry and the state that all's not well with the flagship programme. Monitoring institution reports are discussed at programme approval meetings and referred to states. But there's no action. Monitoring bodies prepare a field report of 25% schools in a state each quarter. In...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: What happens when academic rivalry spills over into the political arena? A riveting contest ensues, if the one being played out in the run-up to the general elections along with the Narendra Modi-Nitish Kumar showdown is any indication. While the Jagdish Bhagwati-Arvind Panagariya combo - both professors of economics at Columbia University - are packing a fair punch, Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen is ducking and dodging,...

-The Business Standard Peg decline at 7.8 percentage points between 2009-10 and 2011-12 The poverty rate has declined by 7.8 percentage points in two years, according to the latest estimates by the Planning Commission. If 29.8 per cent of the population was poor in 2009-10, the figure came down to 22 per cent in 2011-12. The estimates are based on the recently-released report by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) for 2011-12. This...