Interventions aimed directly at children — providing free textbooks, uniforms and addressing out of school children &NDAsh; account only for 6 per cent of the total investment in elementary education. The largest investment — 78 per cent — of the education budget in India is invested in teachers and management costs while the next largest spending, to the tune of 14 per cent, is done on creating school infrastructure. Only...

-CNN-IBN   Prime Minister Manmohan Singh released the first-ever citizens' report on child malnutrition in the national capital on Tuesday. "The problem of malnutrition is a national shame," the Prime Minister said. The statistics in the HUNGaMA (Hunger and Malnutrition) report say that every third malnourished child on the planet is an Indian. The report, on the survey conducted by Naandi FouNDAtion, has been made at the insistence of the Citizens' Alliance against...

-The Hoot The brutally fatal silencing of three journalists along with the sharp rise in censorship of content in online media and the increasing cases of defamation marked the deterioration of the climate for free speech across India in 2011. Attacks on journalists continued to be high, with 24 recorded instances even as writers, journalists and lawyers bore the brunt of the intolerance of vigilante groups to dissenting opinion. The Free Speech...

She has spent considerable time researching female infanticide. Sharada Srinivasan talks about why elimination of the girl child is prevalent all over the country. Daughter elimination is very much prevalent in Tamil Nadu even if not as intense as in other parts of the country. Sharada Srinivasan, assistant professor in International Development Studies at York University Toronto, has spent a considerable amount of time researching this subject. Her book Daughter Deficit:...

One of the great achievements of India is our free and vibrant press. This is an accomplishment of direct relevance to the working of democracy. Authoritarianism flourishes not only by stifling opposition, but also by systematically suppressing information. The survival and flowering of Indian democracy owes a great deal to the freedom and vigour of our press. There are so many occasions when, sitting even in Europe or in America,...