The state is not serious about the need for a robust programme of elementary teacher education to realise the right to education. IN India today it is difficult to decide how the agenda for teacher education and its reform can be taken forward. The Right to Education will succeed only if teachers are able to work to ensure that all children do become educated by attending school; effectively, this means...

-The Times of India   The Madras high court has directed the Tamil Nadu school education department to finalise and publish the rules for the Right to Education Act within six weeks. The first bench comprising Chief Justice M Y Eqbal and Justice T S Sivagnanam delivering its order on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by advocate S Sathia Chandran, who said that though the act has laudable provisions, it could...

A recent ILO report focusses on the discrimination in employment opportunities and remuneration and wants governments to act. IN recent years, one of the predominant concerns of international organisations, especially those that have a “rights” perspective, has been the impact of the global downturn on various vulnerable sections across the world. Notwithstanding the fact that many countries have signed and ratified conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and are...

-The United Nations   An estimated 10 million people across the Horn of Africa are facing a severe food crisis following a prolonged drought in the region, with child malnutrition rates in some areas twice the emergency threshold amid high food prices that have left families desperate, the United Nations reported today. In some areas of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Uganda, drought conditions are the worst in 60 years, the...

Being trained as solar-power engineers enables women from rural India and Africa to introduce electricity in isolated areas Securing the end of her bright yellow and orange sari firmly around her head, Santosh Devi climbs up to the rooftop of her house to clean her solar panels. The shining, mirrored panels, which she installed herself last year, are a striking sight against the simple one-storey homes of her village. No...