-The United Nations An independent United Nations human rights expert today hailed a decision by the Indian Supreme Court to uphold a law which mandates that a quarter of the places in the county’s private and public schools should be reserved for disadvantaged groups. “Exclusion and poverty remain the most important obstacles to the realization of the right to education in all regions of the world,” said the Special Rapporteur on the...

As the final bell goes off in my daughter's school, a ripple of anticipation runs through a group of children waiting at the gate. Tiny hands stretch through eager to touch those on the other side. For an instant, a single handshake seems to bridge an insurmountable distance, the meeting of the children of the two Indias: one that is elite, entitled and exclusive and the other that is deprived,...

All schools, barring unaided Minority institutions, will have to set aside 25 per cent of their seats for disadvantaged sections in the neighbourhood, the Supreme Court ruled today. The top court settled the question by upholding the relevant clause in the right to education law, saying that “advancement of education is a recognised head of charity” and rejecting a slew of petitions filed by several unaided schools. Since the act deals with...

The Supreme Court on Thursday by a majority of 2:1 upheld the constitutional validity of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which provides for free and compulsory education to children between the age of 6 and 14 years and mandates government/aided/and non-Minority unaided schools to reserve 25 per cent of the seats for these children. A Bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justice Swatanter Kumar...

Reservation will change their character, says Supreme Court The Supreme Court on Thursday held that the Right to Education Act would not apply to unaided Minority schools. The majority judgment by Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justice Swatanter Kumar said: “Reservation of 25 per cent in such unaided Minority schools will result in changing the character of the schools if the right to establish and administer such schools flows from the right...