-The Telegraph One reason for the shift to private schools is the inadequate number of government institutions What government schools lacked in glamour they once made up in width and depth of study and aspirations towards social INClusiveness. The recent growth of private schools suggests that even their academic credentials have become suspect. According to the Global Education Monitoring Report, 2022 by Unesco, in the last eight years, seven out of 10...

-The Telegraph University Grants Commission has also advocated online exams and ‘blended’ online-offline courses New Delhi: A proposal for India’s universities to introduce “flipped classrooms”, where teachers provide material to students in advance to study at home and the classroom is used for debate, analysis and problem-solving, has divided academics. Central University of Punjab vice-chancellor R.P. Tiwari said flipped classrooms help develop critical thinking while conventional classrooms encourage passive learning, but St Stephens...

-India.mongabay.com * After the drop in wheat production due to heat waves, extreme weather events have now cast a shadow on rice production, which is likely to drop beyond centre’s initial 6% loss estimate. * In six years (2015-21), the country lost 33.9 million hectares of the cropped area due to floods and excess rains and 35 million hectares due to drought, which are likely to intensify as various studies predict. * Centre...

-The Telegraph Struggle to reduce cases in 6 districts The Bengal health department is finding it tough to pull down the dengue positivity rate to under 10 per cent in at least six districts, INCluding Calcutta, because of the paucity of civic and rural workers with the skill to track and destroy mosquito breeding pockets. Among Bengal districts, the dengue positivity rate this week is the highest in Calcutta, followed by Jalpaiguri, Hooghly,...

-The Hindu Business Line The negotiations must be conducted in a transparent manner especially on issues regarding intellectual property Every time countries negotiate a trade deal, public health workers are forced to keep their ear to the ground, to ensure there is no trade-off on health. And that seems to be the case this time too, in the build-up to the proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and the United Kingdom. Leaked...