In our 63rd year of Independence, the Right to Education Act comes into effect on April 1. On the eve of its launch, the Union education minister has balanced our perspective by another resolve. India’s enrolment rate for higher education is around 12 per cent. He would increase this to 30 per cent, in line with the advanced nations. There is only one snag. Unlike in advanced countries, one Indian in...

Ten days before it comes into force, the Right to Education Act has been challenged in the Supreme Court as an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of private and minority schools. One of the petitioners’ main complaints is that the act will force these schools to teach up to a fourth of their students free of cost if they come from the neighbourhood. Another is that the schools cannot even pick and...

A new drive has started to bring development to the remote north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. In a letter from the region, the BBC's former India correspondent Mark Tully says there are fears that it will undermine the traditional tribal culture of the area and alienate the population. Driving from the east of Arunachal Pradesh to its oldest town, Pasighat, I was made all too aware of the state's underdevelopment....

The Central budget of 2010-11 is a further step in the realisation of a vision of India vibrant with the income, wealth, saving, education and the entrepreneurial energy of the top 5-10 per cent of the population and the rest of Indians, serving that minority and surviving as barely literate, malnourished multitude.  With the accession of Rajiv Gandhi to power, a vision began to germinate. That vision was that of...

One looks forward to the Finance Minister's budget speech with a hope that it spells some new major initiatives and schemes for development, and that it might promise any major allocation of resources to any sector, besides fresh tax proposals. In the case of education sector, one might feel disappointed at the proposals made in the Union budget for 2010-11 on both counts. No new initiatives are proposed; no major...