-The United Nations While child survival rates have increased dramatically since 1990, one million babies each year do not see their second day of life, many succumbing to complications during labour and delivery that could be easily prevented with simple, cost effective interventions, according to a report released today by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The 2014 Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed progress report - the second in a...

-Economic and Political Weekly   Through a two-way process comprising text analysis of the policy framework of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme and analysis of empirical data collected through interaction with policy implementers, teachers, students, experts, etc, this article puts forth the argument that urban education system has failed partly because of the inability of the implementers to plan, manage and facilitate the programme. Monika Banerjee (banerjie77@gmail.com) is with the Zakir Husain Centre...

-Frontline   The United Nation's MDG report 2014 shows that despite India's significant economic progress, around one-third of the world's extremely poor people reside in the country. IT is raining development goals. As the period for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) draws to a close next year, discussions around these goals and what should replace them have reached fever pitch, with national governments, international organisations and representatives of civil society participating in them. Of...

-PTI   HRD minister Smriti Irani on Sunday favoured strong linkages between institutes of higher learning and rural India for the development of villages and suggested that they should start courses on rural development. She said her ministry would also set up "cell" to see that educational institutions were engaged in programmes aimed at development of rural India. "Our aim in the coming five years is that all technical institutions are connected to the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: About half of all Indian students were perceived by teachers as lacking the skills required for the class or grade they were entering, despite the same teachers also believing that the learning environment had improved over the last decade. This was revealed in a survey of over 5,000 teachers from schools and institutions of higher education from over 200 cities across the country. The teachers identified...