-The Hindu The acceptance of inclusion as a concept amongst teachers is weakened by the complexity they encounter in the classrooms when dealing with children from disadvantaged families Let's consider an issue that teachers in our government schools grapple with every day. Every class across the country has a significant proportion of children who are first generation school-goers. They come from severely disadvantaged families. The support at home for such children for...

-The Indian Express The NDA government took over from the UPA more than eight months ago but it appears to be deja vu for activists fighting against the constitutionality of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, which empowers police to arrest people for social media posts. Following the previous government's line, the NDA regime has lent its support to the validity of Section 66A, saying the "danger was present and clear"...

-Tehelka Why is India struggling to feed its girls and women, who are in desperate need of nutrition, asks Ruhi Kandhari One out of three women or adolescent girls who come through that door are anaemic," says Dr Savita Agarwal, who runs a charitable clinic at a slum in north Delhi, pointing at the door of her clinic. "They cannot afford to eat meat, eggs, fruits and vegetables that provide iron." Fifty percent...

-The Hindu Considering Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's caution regarding the insecurity that people face over a lifetime due to the deprivation of basic education, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2014 calls for a hard look at the SITuation. Its findings amount to a distressing catalogue of the failures inherent in the pedagogic methods of instruction in vogue. The foremost among them is the overemphasis on a curriculum that...

-Business Standard Former rural development minister Jairam Ramesh tells Sanjeeb Mukherjee that the Ordinance to amend the land acquiSITion Act (2013) opens the door for forcible acquiSITion and undermines the spirit and the substance of the legislation. Edited excerpts: * An oft-repeated argument given by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government to justify bringing an Ordinance to amend the land acquiSITion Act (2013) passed by your government is that many Congress-ruled states...