-The Tribune The government will also have to take back the three farm laws, says Surjewala The Congress on Saturday hailed as “farmers’ victory” the Centre’s order to commence paddy procurement in Punjab and Haryana from October 3 instead of October 11. The Centre’s earlier decision to postpone procurement till October 11 due to recent heavy rains sparked protests by farmers in the two states.   Responding to the development, Congress’ chief spokesperson Randeep...

-NDTV.com Six cops were suspended on Tuesday night and a murder case has been filed against four of them earlier after nationwide outrage over the incident. Lucknow: A widely shared video on social media shows top officials in Uttar Pradesh's Gorakhpur allegedly trying to dissuade the family of businessman Manish Gupta, who died during a late-night police raid at a city hotel on Monday, from filing a police case in the matter. Six...

-TheWire.in The 'Freedom of the Net', an annual report that analyses the state of human rights in the digital sphere, found plenty to object to in the Indian context. New Delhi: “Where democratic checks and balances are lacking, government officials will exploit regulation to punish any company that moderates politicians’ speech, or pushes back against arbitrary orders to remove content or hand over data.” These lines come from Freedom House’s latest edition of...

Remote teaching and learning promoted by Edtech companies as an alternative to physical classrooms, especially since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, may have a sizeable consumer base in our country. However, at the bottom of the pyramid, there are only a few takers of online education. In reality, class and caste-divide, which is more prominent in rural areas, affects access to digital learning. The majority of the school going...

-Inclusive Media for Change  The pandemic induced school closures have taken a huge toll on the right to education and learning levels of the school children coming from underprivileged sections. A survey covering 1,362 school children (enrolled in Classes 1-8) from 1,362 households, which was carried out in 15 states/ UTs in the month of August 2021 (first round), reveals the catastrophic consequences of prolonged school closure in the last one...