-PTI United Nations has observed that poverty head count ratio for Muslims is highest in the states of Assam, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Gujarat even as it expressed satisfaction over India's efforts to meet the millennium development goals in important areas. "India is well placed to meet the millennium evelopment goals on reducing poverty by half and achieving universal primary education and gender parity in education. However, it is not...

-PTI The ongoing nursery admission process in the national capital would remain unaffected as the Delhi High Court today upheld the validity of two government notifications that gave powers to private unaided schools to formulate their own criteria. "We uphold the notifications," a bench comprising Chief Justice D Murugesan and Justice V K Jain said while disposing of a PILseeking quashing of the notifications issued by the Union Human Resources Development...

-The Hindu Lack of directives on implementation of several clauses of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory education (RTE) Act, 2009, has annoyed school managements in Mumbai, while education rights activists blame the lack of monitoring for chaos in admissions. In a city where admission fees in private institutions are sky-high, the demand for enrolment in ‘famous’ and convent schools is also increasing. According to sources in the Sarva Shiksha...

-The Hindu “Unions should press for things like public health, nutrition, in addition to [addressing] issue of secularity” Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on Saturday exhorted trade unions to expand their role to address injustice in general, covering aspects like inequalities in income, healthcare, education and nutrition. Speaking at the 90 anniversary celebration of the Reserve Bank Employees Association, he said unions could take their role further as their identity cut across religious sects,...

-Economic and Political Weekly The proposed legislation on the National Food Security Act has been steadily watered down since it was fi rst mooted in 2009. The Parliamentary Standing Committee that examined the 2011 Bill has disappointingly continued with "targeting". If the government passes the bill incorporating the committee's suggestions, a historic opportunity to combat hunger and malnutrition would be lost. Ankita Aggarwal (aggarwal.ankita87@gmail.com) is a Research Scholar at the Centre for...