-The Indian Express Even as the Samajwadi government in Uttar Pradesh draws flak for delaying the arrest of politicians who allegedly fomented trouble ahead of the Muzaffarnagar riots, the Association of Democratic Research has found that 11 MPs and 26 MLAs across the country have been accused of attempting to whip up religious sentiments or wilfully damaging places of worship. The figures were collated after analysing affidavits submitted by candidates at...

-Down to Earth Money pumped in development schemes in Bihar is giving rise to a new breed of village heads, flush with money and flexing muscles About a year ago killings and a spurt in the purchase of arms and luxury vehicles in extremely backward villages started to bother the Bihar police. It spied and found that mukhiyas, or village heads, had multiplied their assets beyond imagination. It took the police six...

-PTI NEW DELHI: The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) launched its multi-lingual website to reach out to various sections of the society. "The website, www.uidai.gov.in, will now appear in five regional languages: Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi and Tamil in addition to Hindi and English," an official release said. UIDAI is planning to systematically add additional language microsites to facilitate ease of access to all sections of the society. The second phase of the...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Government has proposed standards for playschools that include the size of the classroom and outdoor space, mandatory use of mother tongue or vernacular language as medium of instruction and student-caregiver ratio. These conditions are part of the 'early childhood care and education' (ECCE) formulated by the women and child development (WCD) ministry and slated to be discussed in the Union Cabinet on Friday. Among the "base...

-The Hindu Geeta Dharmarajan, founder of Katha, which has just completed 25 years of reaching out to the unreached in the National Capital. Scrolling down the students' blog of Katha, the non-profit organisation in the National Capital which runs schools for underprivileged children living in 248 slums, I come across a complaint letter by a child addressed to the Chairman, Municipal Corporation of Delhi. The child wants to bring to his notice...