-The Hindu Madurai: If the Right to Education Act is implemented properly in all schools, students from the marginalised sections will be greatly benefited. Another important fact is financial support for education. The student could achieve this feat only because of the scholarship scheme; "The Government should make sure that grants are disbursed on time and deserving students should not have to wait," said S. Balakrishnan, Director, Vergal Education Trust, Madurai. When asked...

-The Hindu     The Kerala government has not learnt anything from the Attappady tragedy. Nutrition levels of women and children, most of them tribals, continue to remain dismal in the area At the Agali Community Health Centre in Attappady, Palakkad district, Kerala, Kavitha tends to her four-year-old child lying listlessly on the cot, critically ill. The doctor says the child is severely malnourished. He also says there are eight such infants and children,...

-The Indian Express Shirwani, Pitora, Deoli (Uttarakhand): Over a fortnight after the flash-floods, while many villages remain inaccessible by road, tragic stories are emerging from areas where dirt tracks have been opened up. About seven kilometres from Guptkashi, the six-odd hamlets that comprise the Deoli-Bramhagram panchayat have reported 57 men missing, and the area is fast getting the tag of the "village of widows". For about six months of the year,...

-The Indian Express As the government begins the second phase of rollout of Direct Benefits Transfer in 78 districts from July 1, it would do well to look back at the rather shaky experience of the scheme's implementation in the past six months, and whether it is in fact prepared to bring in more areas under the scheme's ambit. The ambitious plan, that aims at eliminating middlemen and ensuring Money reaches beneficiaries...

-The Hindu Indentured labour may be a forgotten part of our colonial economic history but Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh are still sending ‘Girmitya' to toil in distant lands The descendants of indentured labourers, who migrated from eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to erstwhile colonies, recently met at The Hague in the Netherlands to commemorate 140 years of migration - perpetuated through a system popularly known as ‘Girmit.' They gathered from all...