-The Hindustan Times Lawyer and education activist Ashok Aggarwal has spent over a decade challenging private schools that violate laws, cheat parents and deny students – especially the poor -- an opportunity to study. But two years after the Right to Education Act came into effect requiring private schools to set aside 25% free seats for students from economically weaker sections (EWS), Aggarwal isn’t worrying about the law’s implementation.   “Most top schools...

-The Hindu The insights in the NCERT cartoon report can help to make the curriculum and the classroom more inclusive While the NCERT textbooks report has generated much heat, it has also shed positive light on the issue. It is time to reflect on this side of the debate and deal with the questions it raises. The committee’s mandate was to identify educationally inappropriate materials in textbooks and suggest alternatives, if necessary. The...

-Live Mint State’s role to diminish from that of provider to manager, making way for private companies, individual practitioners The government is set to relinquish its role as a provider of primary healthcare, making way for private companies and individual medical practitioners to take the lead in offering clinical services, and focus on preventive interventions such as immunization and HIV testing. The move is in line with the government’s approach of outsourcing its...

-The Hindu Political mobilisation along ethnic lines has played a dominant role in reinforcing group differences in Assam, with blatant disregard for the present realities of its demography For the people of Assam, the last few weeks have brought misery upon misery. No sooner had they begun to recover from the floods, than came the riots that have rendered thousands homeless in the Boro Territorial Autonomous District (BTAD). The violence has not...

Apparently, people across the country, bridging class, caste and income divides, are deliberately ensuring that girls are simply not born. The child sex ratio of 914 girls per 1,000 boys is a tragic situation and a poor reflection on India’s growth and development. This is in spite of laws, schemes, relentless activism and media campaigns spanning three decades in support of the girl child. According to activists and economists, a...