Sunday marked the completion of two years since the landmark Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act came into force. Although Tamil Nadu initially took time to come out with its draft rules before it notified them in November 2011, the School Education Department, over the last couple of months, has taken up a number of initiatives to raise awareness of the RTE Act. One such attempt was setting up...

India's total fertility rate (TFR) - the average number of children expected to be born per woman during her reproductive years - has fallen by19% over the past decade. Among bigger states, the percentage decline in TFR during this period the last decade varied from as high as 28% in Punjab to 5.6%in Kerala. Maharashtra saw the second highest dip in TFR between 2000-2010 at 26.9%, followed by Haryana and Andhra...

As more and more scams come tumbling out of the closet by the day, courtesy the Right to Information (RTI), the Maharashtra government has made a move to amend RTI rules. As per a notification, dated January 16, which is floating around on emails, an applicant can ask questions only on a single subject matter and his application cannot exceed 150 words. Besides, during inspection, a person can carry only a...

-The Hindustan Times Home minister RR Patil on Friday told the Legislative Council that the state was planning a special tribal battalion of the State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) to tackle the naxals in the state. He added that many young police officers were hesitant to work in the tribal areas and there was a need to raise a force comprising those who knew the terrain and belonged to the area. “We...

The change is accompanied by a significant geographical shift from the south and north-east to states in other parts of India such as Maharashtra, Bihar, Orissa and Rajasthan Marking a dramatic shift in the demographic profile of people with AIDS, migrant workers and their wives have emerged as a high-risk group (HRG) for contracting the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), with an infection rate surpassing that of injecting drug users, commercial sex...