-The Indian Express   The Right to Education Act, or RTE, has been justly criticised as forcing all of India’s educational establishments into a bureaucratic straitjacket. Its aim is laudable and urgent: to ensure that every Indian child has access to an education that meets certain minimum standards. But figuring out those standards is hard, and this is where Delhi’s tendency to obsessively centralise, divorced from the actual realities of education...

Lakhs of children waiting to take the entrance test for admission into the prestigious Navodaya Vidyalayas can now finally appear for the take relief as the law ministry has finally said that these schools can be exempted from two key provisions of the Right to Education Act. However, the law ministry has asked HRD ministry to take the precaution of issuing the necessary notification exempting these schools from the RTE...

-The United Nations   Up to 3.6 million deaths could be avoided each year in 58 developing countries if midwifery services are upgraded, according to a report released today by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and partners. The study, The State of the World’s Midwifery 2011, estimates that an additional 112,000 midwives need to be deployed in 38 countries to meet their target to achieve 95 per cent coverage of births...

Iodine deficiency disorders have long been a major health problem in the developing world. India has accepted iodine deficiency as a national public health problem. Micronutrient India (MI), a not-for-profit organization, is working with the government to ensure India achieves 100% Universal Salt Iodisation by 2012. Melanie Galvin , regional director, Asia, MI, spoke to Meenakshi Kumar : What does Micronutrient India do? Micronutrient India works in the production area of iodised...

More than five years have passed since the world’s largest employment programme was launched in India. The scale of employment generated was not the only reason that this is a path breaking legislation. The MGNREGA is the first national law to establish rights in the development sector. It is demand based, and not constrained by arbitrary and restrictive selections like the Below Poverty Line (BPL) list. Any person living in a...