-Hindustan Times Village Khokh (Patiala): Nek Singh Khokh fears he might wilt, just the way the saplings in his sprawling Nursery might. Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled his demonetisation plan, scrapping big denomination currency to drain the economy of black money and counterfeits, Khokh has been struggling to pay labourers to tend to his saplings. The owner of a Nursery, some 25 km west of the Punjab town of Sirhind, Khokh...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Pre-school kids who have a better understanding of concepts like distance and shape have a higher chance of excelling in studies in later years, a new study has concluded. Rather than numbers and alphabets, the stress should be on helping children understand these concepts, a key person behind the exercise told The Telegraph. The Indian Early Childhood Impact Study assessed around 13,000 five-year-olds from Assam, Rajasthan and undivided Andhra...

-The Hindu Children from the RTE quota are often left feeling small as equality seems to be lost in monetary disparity Thirty-two-year-old Uma Devi (name changed) is conspicuous in a crowd of parents who have come to pick their children up in swanky cars. She works as a Group D employee at a government hospital, but thanks to the 25 per cent reservation quota mandated by the Right to Education (RTE) Act,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Delhi's 1,800-odd municipal schools have declared a holiday tomorrow citing predictions of "very poor" smog and the health risk it poses, but critics rued that over a million poor children would miss their midday meals. Some parents said the slum children who go to these schools would be playing on the smoggy streets anyway if classes were closed. This is the first time so many schools will close in...

-Scroll.in The squabble with Karnataka over river water has heightened agricultural distress, leaving many with significant debt. The three acres that Jayamohan owns in Orathanadu in Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu has not seen a harvest since January. Encouraged by a bountiful north-east monsoon last November, Jayamohan anticipated a normal south-west monsoon in the middle of this year. He prepared his land in May for the kuruvai summer crop season (which is known...