-The Hindu Evidence of tampering with, overwriting & alteration of records The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in a report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, pointed out that several ineligible farmers were favoured and a large number of deserving small and marginal farmers left out in implementation of the United Progressive Alliance’s much-touted Rs. 52,000-crore farm loan waiver scheme. The scheme, meant to help indebted farmers in districts where suicides occur, was so...

-Governance Now However Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat are trying hard towards implementing the RTE Act successfully Even after three years of implementation of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, less than 20 percent schools across the country are RTE compliant. The RTE Act, which was implemented in April 2010, specified a time frame of three years for improving schools' infrastructure and hiring teachers. The deadline expires on March 31,...

-Press Information Bureau The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 has brought in several reform processes. States/UTs have inter-alia brought out notifications prohibiting corporal punishment, detention and board examinations in elementary education. The National Council for Teachers’ Education (NCTE) has laid down teacher qualifications and 22 States/UTs have conducted Teacher Eligibility Tests to improve the quality of teaching. In order to ensure free and compulsory education for...

Unless data gathering for the Socio Economic and Caste Census is refined, the exercise could cast out the real claimants. Have the census enumerators recently knocked on your door with swanky tablet computers in hand? If they have, it's because they have begun to go door-to-door in most States to complete the final phase of the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC). This mammoth exercise is being coordinated by more than...

Officials may pocket the wage increases, but the wage level in MGNREGA seems just enough to induce workers to turn up. This year marks the sixth anniversary of the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), India's landmark right-to-work programme. The Act guarantees 100 days of paid employment to every rural household in India (up to 850 million people), regardless of eligibility criteria, and establishes the government's...