-The Telegraph Lucknow: The laptops are piling, the classrooms are empty. The Akhilesh Yadav-led Uttar Pradesh government today indicated it was ready to shift gears and focus on tackling alarming school dropout rates after being slammed over misplaced priorities and cash-guzzling populist schemes like free laptops. The issue was raised by a Congress legislator, Pramod Tiwari. BJP MLAs soon followed suit, drawing the government’s attention to the large number of dropouts at the...

-The Hindu India has the largest programme, catering to over 114 million children A global report by the World Food Project (WFP) for 2013 on 169 countries has said that India has the largest school feeding programme in the world, catering to over 114 million children, but stands 12thamong 35 lower-middle-income countries covering 79 per cent of its total number of school-going children. The report titled "State of School Feeding Worldwide, 2013" draws...

-The Hindu We rarely ask the poor what poverty means to them and what changes in lifestyle would make them poverty-free The idea that poverty is determined, defined and measured by a group of people mostly unaffected by it is an intriguing one. Numerous definitions and studies globally tell us what poverty is, how it is measured - extreme and the moderate (there are categories!). Though surprisingly, none of these definitions has...

-The United Nations Despite significant progress in meeting international development goals for women's empowerment, gaps in key areas remain, which require a renewed effort from all partners to better integrate gender issues into the overall quest for sustainable development, a United Nations gender equality official said today. "It is ... essential to harness the synergies between gender equality, women's rights and empowerment with sustainable development in its three dimensions - economic, social,...

-Outlook New Delhi: As they bask in the post-poll glory, issues like water, education and unauthorised colonies figure high on the winning candidates' agenda. 26-year-old Prakash who left a managerial job in a private company to join the Aam Aadmi Party credited his win to "lack of works done by his predecessors". Prakash dealt a severe blow to Congress and BJP in the polls by amassing 51,646 votes from Deoli constituency in south...