-Tehelka With 65 percent of the population below the age of 35, India boasts of an unparalleled generational dividend, but are we turning this potential into a disaster? Avalok Langer spots a ticking time bomb Nutrition & Health* 40% of children in India are malnourished 43% of children in the age group of 12-23 months receive full immunisation 48%+ of children are underweight 50%+ of all deaths under age 5 are related to malnutrition 45% of children...

-The Business Standard Kolkata: Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Ford Foundation International professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has slammed the government's Right To Education (RTE) programme. This, he said, was only a step towards ensuring a means of livelihood for teachers. Banerjee said the programme, implemented in 2009, lacked sense. He said he wasn't hopeful about the outcome of the initiative. "It is simply for the teachers, by the teachers,...

-The Times of India In an alarming indictment of the quality of training given to prospective school teachers, over 99% aspirants failed to clear the Central Teacher Eligibility Test (CTET) 2012. The results of the competency test conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), declared on December 27, 2012, showed that less than 1% of the 7.95 lakh who appeared managed to clear the exam. In fact, since the exam...

-The Times of India NAGPUR: The state education department has moved into an aggressive mode on learning that 10 lakh students have ditched government schools (zilla parishad and corporation) and shifted to private institutions in the last five years. The revelation came from Sanjay Deshmukh, director of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) and the man leading RTE implementation in Maharashtra. "Five years ago we had about 78 lakh students, now the figure has...

-The United Nations World leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other groups will come together in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to take part in the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) later this month. The Conference seeks to shape how countries and their citizens can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection to achieve long-term growth. Seven key areas have been identified...