While children are dying of malnutrition, our leaders are busy comforting the corporate sector   This week’s show of ‘Walk the Talk’ by Shekhar Gupta was the third in a series of episodes that seemed to be dedicated to bringing forth the corporate viewpoint to counter the current environment of mistrust, post Radiagate. While the first two were with Ratan Tata and Deepak Parekh, obvious corporate representatives, it is telling that as...

This order will bind all private unaided schools in Rajasthan, but it underlined the Supreme Court's anxiety towards implementation of Right To Education Act, 2009, which mandated schools to keep 25% of seats for socially and economically disadvantaged sections. Importantly, a Bench comprising Justices R V Raveendran and A K Patnaik also stayed the stipulation of weightage to parent's educational qualification for admissions into pre-primary and nursery classes. Though this is...

A lack of toilets and poor hygiene practices in India cost Asia's third largest economy almost $54 billion every year, the World Bank said on Monday. Premature deaths, treatment for the sick, wasted time and productivity, as well as lost tourism revenues, are the main reasons for the high economic losses, the bank said in a report. "For decades, we have been aware of the significant impacts of inadequate sanitation in India,"...

IT WAS a windfall five years ago that taught Panchali Satyavva the power of a lie. It happened one Monday afternoon in Someshwar village of Nizamabad district in Andhra Pradesh. It was raining in sheets and she had just placed a bucket under the steady trickle of water from the roof of her hut. Two men were at her door, holding umbrellas and offering her an unsolicited Rs. 5,000. They...

In a bid to encourage farmers to part with their land for industrial development, the Gujarat government has formulated a new land acquisition policy to make them partners in the development. Announcing this, Minister of State for Industries Saurabh Patel said the State-owned Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) henceforth would acquire land only with the “consent” of the concerned farmers, pay them at the prevailing market price, and give them a...