-Down to Earth Shockingly, the state’s infant mortality rate is worse than Jharkhand; it also has the fourth lowest teacher student ratio in the country “Social development indicators have not been able to keep pace with economic development in this state of over 60 million people," UNICEF had observed about Gujarat back in 2013. Four years later, Maitreesh Ghatak of London School of Economics writes about Gujarat’s development model: “When it...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court was in for a surprise on Monday as it found that Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, mandated no special educational techniques for students suffering from different kinds of impairment and to make them part of mainstream education. A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said it defied common sense that students with...

-The Telegraph Bhubaneswar: The Naveen Patnaik government has plans to spice up the midday meal platter by serving fish that officials say will push up its nutritional quotient. The move, if implemented, will be in accordance with the recommendations of the Odisha State Food Commission that had submitted its report to the government last month. The commission's report had suggested measures required to strengthen the nutritional content of food served at schools and...

-PTI According to the research, not only more women engage in unpaid work as compared to men, they spend two to ten times more time on unpaid work. In addition to their paid activities, this creates a double burden for them. Women spend two to ten times more time doing unpaid work than men, according to a research released today by an NGO. It said one of the major manifestations of the...

-Down to Earth Jean Dreze on why he prefers a solidarity society, rather than a welfare state * Are you actually an advocate of the welfare state? Ideally, I would prefer to think in terms of a solidarity society rather than welfare state, for two reasons. First, private non-profit institutions can play a very useful role in the social sector. In many countries, some of the best schools and health centres are run...