-Hindustan Times School textbooks in recent decades have frequently become battlegrounds for ideological contestation in India. Most textbook wars are to advance majoritarian perspectives on history and culture. However, a recent very different textbook skirmish broke out about the public and private sectors in healthcare. The story of this ideological clash is bemusing and instructive, illuminating competing perspectives on the nature of education, healthcare and markets in new India. This clash surfaced...

-Hindustan Times Delhi education minister Manish Sisodia on Friday tabled two bills in the Assembly, which he said would revolutionise education reform sand go along way in helping the common man.   The Delhi School (Verification of Accounts and Refund of Excess Fee) Bill 2015, better known as the Fee Regulation Bill, was the first to be presented. “People say that fee of a private school nowadays is more than their salaries, making private...

-Hindustan Times New Delhi: Eight-year-old Pihu Tiwari runs a marathon every morning with nearly 12 kilos loaded on her back. At least that’s what her walk from the school gate to her second-floor classroom feels like. She doesn’t just get tired but often pants her way up the staircase. “She is thin and weighs 29kg. And every day, she has to carry a bag to school which is almost half her weight. My...

-Down to Earth A few villages in Haryana successfully grow cotton amid widespread destruction of the crop by whitefly in the region LOOK HERE, the red pest you see is Chrysopa,” says an excited Manisha, while navigating through her cotton field in Haryana’s Nidana village. “A single Chrysopa, a carnivorous pest, eats around 125-150 whiteflies a day,” says the 24-year-old. Further ahead in her 0.8-hectare cotton plantation, she picks another plant leaf...

-The Indian Express Since appointment of Dalit cook, 100 have left Kagganahalli school in Kolar. Kagganahalli (Karnataka): Every day Radhamma takes out a diary she is required to maintain as part of the mid-day meal scheme in government schools in Karnataka and writes four words, “No one ate today.” Every day for the past five months. Radhamma is a Scheduled Caste, and the condition that she not make food is the only way...