They were poor. Some of them begged and picked rags on the streets of Bangalore, and some others worked as domestic helps. But their fate changed when the Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA), a Bangalore-based grass-root community development organisation, took notice of their plight and built a school and accommodation facilities for them. However, not all street children are lucky enough to be rescued from the pavements, and many of...

  They were poor. Some of them begged and picked rags on the streets of Bangalore, and some others worked as domestic helps. But their fate changed when the Association for Promoting Social Action (APSA), a Bangalore-based grass-root community development organisation, took notice of their plight and built a school and accommodation facilities for them. However, not all street children are lucky enough to be rescued from the pavements, and many of...

Kerala has done well in the field of higher education and holds much promise. But further policy initiatives are needed to sustain the momentum and prepare for future challenges. Kerala, almost alone among Indian States, has pursued a consistent and in many ways successful higher education policy. It educates 18 per cent of its young people, double the national average, and has universal literacy. It is worth looking at what might...

Traditional Sanskrit schools, known as ved pathshalas, will be exempt from the Right to Education Act and their students will be allowed to later join mainstream schooling, human resource development minister Kapil Sibal said on Tuesday. The assurance came after some of Hinduism's most revered institutions – including the Kanchi Matha, the Ahobila Matha, the Andayan Ashrama and the Arya Samaj – demanded exemption for the pathshalas, as was reported by...

A Vigyan Gram, or a science village, is to come up on the outskirts of Tripura's capital, complete with a museum, library, planetarium, botanical garden, bird sanctuary and other attractions to popularise science among the masses. The Vigyan Gram, to be modelled on the lines of science cities in various cities in India, would be set up at a cost of Rs.35 crore in western Tripura's Badharghat, a village on the...