-The Telegraph   The quality of elementary education is falling in rural schools almost two years after education was made a fundamental right in April 2010. The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2011, a survey of government and private schools in rural areas conducted by the NGO Pratham, shows a decline in schoolchildren’s “learning outcome levels” compared with the previous year, whether in reading or arithmetic skills.  However, students of private schools have...

-PTI   The Indian Space Research Organisation has declined to make public a report submitted by a high-level committee appointed by the Prime Minister that went into alleged irregularities in the controversial S-Band deal between Devas Multimedia and Antrix Corporation. While hearing an appeal filed under the RTI act, India’s premier space agency said disclosure of information would impede investigation and declined to give copies of the report. ...

The CIC on his recent remark that if the legislature had its way, there would have been an express provision in the RTI Act to exclude the office of the CJI Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) Satyananda Mishra recently remarked that if the legislature had its way, there would have been an express provision in the law to exclude the office of the Chief Justice of India from the RTI Act....

-The Economist   Opposition to the world’s biggest biometric identity scheme is growing FOR a country that fails to meet its most basic challenges—feeding the hungry, piping clean water, fixing roads—it seems incredible that India is rapidly building the world’s biggest, most advanced, biometric database of personal identities. Launched in 2010, under a genial ex-tycoon, Nandan Nilekani, the “unique identity” (UID) scheme is supposed to roll out trustworthy, unduplicated identity numbers based on...

A desperate state is making Maoists out of innocents Arun Ferreira smiles easily. The four years and eight months of incarceration, as an alleged Naxalite/Maoist, sit lightly on the 40-year-old quintessential Bandra boy. Released on January 5 from Nagpur Central Jail—acquitted in 10 of the 11 cases and bailed in one—Ferreira is taking his time to readjust to his life with family and friends in Mumbai. He must build anew...