-TwoCircles.net The research highlights how the Educational marginalization of Muslims in India starts at an early age itself and reveals that growth in literacy rates among Muslims is much less than among SCs/STs. Muslim children face systematic exclusion at the pre-primary level at private schools in New Delhi, the national capital of India, a new research has pointed out. The research article titled “Early Educational Marginalization for Muslim Children in India: An Analysis...

School meals ensure nutrition for millions of vulnerable children across the world. Almost 370 million children worldwide are covered by school feeding programmes. While 100 million school children benefitted from the noon meal scheme in India prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries like Brazil (48 million), China (44 million), South Africa (9 million) and Nigeria (9 million) too run similar programmes for school children. However, an estimated 39 billion in-school...

-PTI/ The Hindu Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous State, houses the maximum number of prisoners at 1,01,297. As many as 1,32,729 (27.37%) of the 4,78,600 prison inmates in the country are “illiterate” while 5,677 hold a technical degree or diploma, according to Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) data. The prison statistics presented by Minister of State for Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy recently in Parliament were based on a compilation of...

-The Hindu Mega residential schools are herding in large numbers of tribal children, ‘mainstreaming’ them rather than preserving their language and heritage Tasvir, a young poet-author at Muskaan, a learning centre in Bhopal, tells us how writing can be used to empower his historically stigmatised community: “Pardhis have a rich history. But the way others label us today is wrong. I believe we should start writing and publish our stories. Our lives...

-Down to Earth While total allocations to Union budget 2021-22 saw an increase of 14.5%, the share for children declined by 10.8% compared to 2020 The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has dealt a serious blow to the Indian economy. The economic slowdown has aggravated poverty, disrupted public provisioning for children’s welfare, exacerbated existing gaps in availability, access and utilisation of services. It has multiplied challenges for children from marginalised communities. Healthcare, nutrition,...