Submit the details of admission of students from weaker sections under Right To Education (RTE) till October 30 or pay fine Rs 10,000. This is the clear cut warning from the district education department to owners of the private Schools of the district. Notably, six months have passed when the RTE introduced, but only few Schools have submitted their admission record. Since the RTE is applicable for the students till...

India is finally ready with a comprehensive Bill that will protect children from sexual abuse. But the Bill, says author-activist Pinki Virani, has a major flaw regarding sexual consent that needs to be immediately addressed and the stakeholders consulted before it becomes law. With a certain Standing Committee so much in the news, let us look at what is happening with another Standing Committee looking into a Bill to protect children...

When activists of the Right to Food campaign attacked Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia over the Rs 32 per capita per day cut-off for poverty line, Vijay Jawandhia — a farm activist from Vidarbha — asked a counter question: “Why are you happy with a minimum wage of Rs 100 per labourer per day under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), when salaries have been revised several...

-The Telegraph   Amartya Sen today blamed “bureaucratic controls” for the delay in release of funds for the upcoming Nalanda University in Bihar. He said the university would teach only two courses to start with because of funds shortage but hoped that in future, it would go beyond teaching to do research as well. Sen felt that Indian universities’ track record in research was a crucial reason why not even one of them...

“There is never enough rice to go around for the whole family,” says tribal woman Leela   With a handful of grain and a head full of recipes, Leela cooks rice in a pot balanced on three stones in a room with a few bricks knocked out to let in sunlight in this village barely 150 km from Raipur, Chhattisgarh capital. When rice is scarce, she adds more water to make a broth,...