Evincing keen interest in working with India in the area of rural development, a British delegation today called on Rural Development Minister C P Joshi and sought co-operation in furthering Indo-British ties in the sector.The delegation, led by All Party Indo-British Parliamentary Group chairman and Labour Member of Parliament for Ealing Southall Virendra Sharma sought the co-operation of the Ministry in furthering Indo-British ties in poverty alleviation, education, skill development...

Per capita income, once regarded as the best index of the welfare of a society, has long since been dethroned from this status. People have argued persuasively that it is a measure that ignores not only income distribution but also the quality of life. Alternative approaches have been designed to explore these nuances of measurement and alternative indices constructed. Amartya Sen has developed a ‘capabilities approach’ to the question of...

The state government has failed to rationalise teachers in proportion to the number of students in its schools as specified in the Right to Education Act. As a result the release of funds from the Centre to the state is being delayed. The Centre had recently expressed its willingness to release its share of `400 crore to the state to implement the RTE. But the teacher-student ratio in many schools is...

The state government has decided to create special training centres for out-of-school children as part of implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act. The Department of Basic Education has already created the detailed proposal for these centres, which has been duly approved by the Centre. These centres will be providing special training to about 95,000 children, aged between 6 to 14 years, who are not enrolled in schools. Retired teachers...

In ten years, the living conditions of the poor have been improving—but not necessarily because of the UN’s goals EVEN at 70, Jiyem, an Indonesian grandmother, gets up in the small hours to cook and collect firewood for her impoverished household. Her three-year-old grandson is malnourished. Nobody in her family has ever finished primary school. Her ramshackle house lacks electricity; the toilet is a hole in the ground; the family...