Entrepreneurs and investors , who had only recently found innovative ways to invest in education as a business , are concerned about the financial impact of the Supreme Court ruling last week upholding the Right to Education Act. All schools, except minority unaided ones , will now have to set aside 25% of seats for poor students .  While most investors welcome the move , they also worry about funding the...

The task of positive disciplining will be trickier for the new age teachers, who are already grappling with the new found malaise of increasing student aggression on teachers.  With “corporal punishment” and “mental harassment” punishable under the new Right to Education Act, many educators are left nonplussed.  Yes, most of them believe sparing the rod need not necessarily spoil the child, but how can teachers abdicate their prime responsibility of shaping young...

No matter where you draw the line, the fall in poverty is greater in high GDP growth years   Some plain facts and some ugly truths. The plain fact is that poverty in India has declined at a rapid pace during the UPA years post 2004. An ugly truth. When the Planning Commission released the estimates of poverty in India, on the basis of the household survey conducted by the NSS in...

The Economic Intelligence Council will discuss the issue when it meets at the end of this month The government is likely to form a central agency to regulate so-called multi-level marketing (MLM) schemes after the Economic Intelligence Council found they had become a “preferred” mode of fraud. In the wake of an increasing number of economic offences, the United Progressive Alliance government has also decided to set up a multidisciplinary school...

Non-urea fertilizer prices were freed in April 2010, but GSFCL, DFPCL, RCF still got gas at regulated prices The fertilizer ministry is considering asking three non-urea fertilizer makers to return part of the gains they have made since April 2010 on account of gas supplied to them at regulated prices while they were allowed to sell their products at market prices. Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers Ltd (RCF), Gujarat State Fertilizers and Chemicals...