-The Business Standard Kolkata: Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Ford Foundation International professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has slammed the government's Right To Education (RTE) programme. This, he said, was only a step towards ensuring a means of livelihood for teachers. Banerjee said the programme, implemented in 2009, lacked sense. He said he wasn't hopeful about the outcome of the initiative. "It is simply for the teachers, by the teachers,...

-The Hindu Widespread criticism of the changes notified recently by the Union Public Service Commission involving the language component in the Civil Services examination has forced the Union government to put those plans on hold pending review. The “language bias” allegation that has been made by almost all the detractors is centred on the perception that English has been given a more prominent place in the scheme of things compared to...

-The Hindu Scarce RTE quota seats in private schools disappoint parents Bangalore: Arun Kumar (name changed), an electrician who earns just a little over Rs. 3,000 a month , is thinking of raising a loan to put his six-year-old son in a private school. This is thanks to the big hopes he pinned on one provision of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act 2009, which has now...

-The Hindu Despite government programmes, nutrition supplements for women and children are not to be found in Jharkhand’s villages More than two years after she gave birth to her youngest daughter, Shanti Oraon, an adivasi farmer in Bhandara village, Khunti district has been unable to resume working in the fields. “She has breathing trouble, and could not start walking even after she turned two and a half years old. I must stay...

-PTI Government is all set to make its public housing programme for rural poor more accountable at panchayat level with new draft guidelines suggesting "proactive" disclosure of details of beneficiaries and making social audit of the scheme a must. The draft guidelines issued by the Rural Development Ministry say that the implementation of Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) should be informed to the local people through wall paintings or notice boards at the...