-The Hindu Natpurwa is a village where women have been forced into prostitution for centuries. And one of them is determined to help the others break free. Round faced, stout and dusky, Chandralekha, at age 15, was the most desired girl among the politicians, policemen and senior members of Eastern Uttar Pradesh’s civil society. “They always wanted plump women,” says Chandralekha, now 51 years old. Chandralekha was pushed into prostitution, by her...

-The Times of India Education researcher Sugata Mitra has won 2013's million-dollar Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Prize with his 'Hole in the Wall' experiment, showing slum children learning to work a computer and Teaching each other minus adult supervision. Speaking with Pratigyan Das, Mitra discussed the dynamics of this venture in India, the radical potential it offers - and how our educational system apparently persists in trying to produce clerks for...

-The Business Standard The various grants under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan don't reach all schools - and not on time, either Educational spending is soaring. At the turn of the decade, new legislation has been enacted to make education a fundamental right. But India's elementary schoolchildren are just not learning. The country's elementary education budget has more than doubled since 2007-08, from Rs 68,853 crore to Rs 147,059 crore this fiscal, but the...

-The Hindu Those opposing Justice Katju’s suggestion of minimum qualifications for journalists are out of touch with reality Some years ago, the journalism entrance test at a career development institute in Mumbai had this objective-type question: Kofi Annan is (a) a Nigerian footballer (b) lead singer of a Sierra Leone pop group (c) a Sri Lankan delicacy (d) Secretary-General of the United Nations. The 100-odd candidates who appeared for the test were...

-The Hindu In a small town in Karnataka, government-school students are working to ensure that their schools meet the infrastructure norms of the RTE Act. Can this model be replicated elsewhere in the country? Kishore Mahadevaiah, a Std VII student, is describing his ideal school. “The school should be very clean and neat. In every class, there should be Teaching and learning materials and sports materials and qualified teachers. And there should...