-Scroll.in The former Delhi High Court chief justice chaired the committee that wrote a landmark report on the status of Muslims in India. There are many reasons to remember Justice Rajinder Sachar, who died in Delhi at the age of 95, on April 20. He was a former chief justice of the Delhi High Court, a civil rights activist proud of his socialist credentials, and a man whose instinct it was...

-Hindustan Times The study has analysed the inter-state differences in the quality of life and levels of living across the major states of India. A composite quality of life index has been prepared using 17 indicators, covering various aspects like income and consumption level, quality of housing, health status and educational attainment of the population. Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh is among the least developed states in terms of quality of life, says a...

-Frontline.in Despite its deeply flawed neoliberal perspective, Economic Survey 2017-18 is rich in detail, has many useful analytical discussions at different levels of aggregation, and would serve as a useful resource for students and scholars. When Arvind Subramanian, the present Chief Economic Adviser to the Ministry of Finance who took office way back in October 2014, presented his first Economic Survey, the one for 2014-15, there was considerable novelty on offer, at...

-The Hindu Business Line Two nationwide surveys of learning levels among schoolchildren show a worrying gap between their aspirations and their ability to achieve them Muskan was in Std VI when she knew she wanted to be a police officer. “People fear you,” says this 17-year-old resident of Painchri village, Shimla, her eyes gleaming at the idea of commanding all that respect. “But it’s not possible for me,” she says the very...

-The Hindu A large-scale vocational education system would help raise the productivity of individuals and the economy Basic education has slipped in priority in the national policy matrix over the decades. The Census and several other data sets have pointed to various dimensions of the problem. Recently, the Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2017, published by a non-governmental organisation and containing data from 26 districts in 24 States, has some national-level...