A buzz that the world’s “seven billionth baby” will be born in Uttar Pradesh on Monday has prompted several NGOs to descend on villages of their choice near Lucknow and draw up plans to welcome some or other newborn that day with a generous dose of hoopla. One primary health centre in western Uttar Pradesh has gone a step further and predicted the baby will be born to 25-year-old Pinky Pawar,...

-The Hindu   Social Welfare Minister A. Narayanaswamy on Friday asked Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) families across the State to get individual household toilets constructed under the Total Sanitation CAMPAign or the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. He said they would be denied the statutory benefits they were enjoying if they failed to comply with this direction. Awareness would be created among such families on the importance of...

-The Economic Times   As the government gears up for a year-long CAMPAign to spread awareness about the Right to Education, a report on teaching and learning in rural India finds that progress in learning ability of students has not been commensurate to the massive investment in primary education and increase in enrolment. The study conducted by the ASER Centre, a network of civil society organisations led by Pratham, in collaboration with...

-EPW   The Anna Hazare group’s foray into electoral politics exposes its shaky foundations. The script of this drama was already written. A single issue CAMPAign, focused narrowly on corruption in public life without a wider world view on the root causes of corruption or on the myriad other problems afflicting Indian society, had to come apart at the seams at some point. That moment arrived when “Team Anna”, as the people behind...

The National Mission to improve the delivery of justice is at work. In October 2009, on the basis of a Vision Document adopted at a judicial conference in New Delhi, the Government of India approved in principle a National Mission to reduce pendency and delays in the judicial system and enhance accountability through structural changes, higher performance standards and capacity-building. Many past attempts to achieve the goals did not yield results...