-The Economic Times Arvind Panagariya, a professor of Indian economics at Columbia University, hits out at Nobel laureate and Harvard University professor Amartya Sen over his call to confront MPs with the "number of deaths" a delayed Food Security Bill can cause. The former chief economist at the Asian Development Bank counters Sen's argument that it is high social spending that has contributed to the economic growth of Asian economies such...

-Countercurrents.org   The events of last over two decades have shown us, more than before that the efforts of dividing the nation by communal forces have been a major obstacle to social peace and process of development. In India while the communal violence began with the Jabalpur riot of 1961, it is from last couple of decades especially from 1980s that the divisive politics has tried to drive a wedge between different...

-The Indian Express     Chandigarh: To meet the long-pending demand of private schools, the UT Education Department has finally initiated the process of reimbursing the bills submitted by private schools regarding the expenditure incurred on the economic weaker section (EWS) students and disadvantaged groups admitted under the RTE Act for the past three years. To verify the bills, the department has asked the schools to submit documents containing information regarding the number of...

-The Indian Express Having faced criticism over objectionable content in school textbooks, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has ruled that all 14,000 institutions affiliated to it must stick to NCERT and CBSE textbooks. All schools will also have to set up websites declaring relevant information, including details pertaining to textbooks being used. Making these conditions for affiliation, the board recently amended its affiliation bylaws to ensure that only properly...

-The Indian Express Chandigarh: Perturbed over the recurring instances of sexual harassment of teenaged girls, panchayats of six villages in Haryana's Mahendergarh district have decided not to send their girls to school from Monday. The decision, taken on Friday by the panchayats, which met at Pal village, will affect 400 girl students. The meeting was chaired by a retired DSP, Amar Singh. According to reports, the panchayats called for a meeting following two...