-Live Mint   72% of respondents across major cities were ignorant about govt schemes exclusively for girl education     Three years after the Right to Education (RTE) Act was passed, around 50% of families in slums across the country are still unaware of its existence, according to a report released by Child Rights and You (CRY), a non-government organization. The report analyzes various barriers in the way of educating girls, drawing on data from a...

-Economic and Political weekly Drawing on the research on basic education in West Bengal, this essay argues the case for a much criticised public education system, which needs to be reconsidered as regards its potential as a provider of quality education, even while addressing its many failings. The essay follows an approach, both critical and constructive, that underlines the collective onus of the public in realising the value of the public...

-The Telegraph The Centre has issued a directive asking officials to seek only the minimum number of documents required for claiming family pension following complaints of unnecessary harassment. In a memorandum issued last week, the department of pension and pensioners’ welfare asked all central government ministries and departments to “strictly” adhere to instructions so that relatives of deceased pensioners are not put through “any hardships”. From the “representations received in this department it...

-Frontline Members of denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, treated as criminal tribes by the colonial rulers, have no place to call their own and no land, no rights, and no support from the government.  Emaciated, eyes sunken deep into sockets, skin hanging loose, almost gasping for breath, Indro Devi and Sarvnath, a couple in their eighties, lie on polythene sheets in an 8×10 square-foot tent made of rags, by a stinking nullah...

-IPS News RAYAGADA- The deafening din of the lunch gong is sweet music to the 200-odd tribal girls rushing down the stairway, clutching stainless steel plates and tumblers. Sikhsya Niketan (House of Education) in Chattikona administrative block of Rayagada district is a residential school meant exclusively for girls of the Dongria Kondh tribe in eastern Odisha state. The school is part of the federal government’s intensified efforts to take universal education to...