For the first time in Jharkhand, World Bank officials from Washington DC will hold daylong deliberations with a select group of academics, bureaucrats and stakeholders here to thrash out a roadmap for improving the standard of higher education in the state. “The quality of higher education is not up to the mark at most educational institutions. There are many challenges and opportunities in the sector in a country where there is...

 I first met Professor Suresh Tendulkar when I was a student at the Delhi School of Economics (DSE). He had also joined around the same time as a teacher at DSE. I have two vivid memories of him as a teacher. First, he would use the blackboard in a particular manner. He would start from one end of the board and write till the end of it. The board was...

A day after the Orissa government halted land acquisition for the controversial Posco project, its detractors observed Wednesday as a 'Black Day' to protest the anniversary of the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the state government and the steel giant six years ago. On Tuesday, the Jagatsinghpur district administration suspended land acquisition for the 12-million tonne steel plant project after protests escalated in Gobindpur village with leaders of the Congress, CPI,...

NGOs hail change in India's stand on listing Long-term exposure to asbestos can harm health: studies Canada is stalling the listing of chrysotile asbestos (white asbestos) at the Conference of Parties to the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent, meeting in Geneva. On Wednesday, India changed its stand and supported the listing. Listing will mandate the exporting countries to give prior data on the mineral to the importing nations to enable them to...

Lakhs of children waiting to take the entrance test for admission into the prestigious Navodaya Vidyalayas can now finally appear for the take relief as the law ministry has finally said that these Schools can be exempted from two key provisions of the Right to Education Act. However, the law ministry has asked HRD ministry to take the precaution of issuing the necessary notification exempting these Schools from the RTE...