If home minister P Chidambaram’s recent letter to West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is any indication, it has taken the Union home ministry seven years to realise that arming civilians to fight Naxalites is a bad idea. How much longer will it take for them to realise that the current paramilitary-based approach in Chhattisgarh is similarly bound to fail? From 2003 onwards, the home ministry has followed a policy of...

The directorate of education (DoE) has finally decided to crack down on Schools flouting the nursery admission rules in the city. Acting on the complaints from parents, the DoE on Wednesday decided to serve notices to errant Schools asking them to either rectify their admission criteria or face cancellation of the entire process. The education officials are expected to visit Schools from Thursday onwards to keep a check on the...

Education reforms, that were expected to be ushered in Karnataka’s Schools following the landmark Right to Education (RTE) legislation, will have to wait. It has emerged that financial and procedural delays will push implementation of key provisions of the Act to next year. The deadlock over funding and delay in preparation of rules for the implementation of the RTE Act means that 25 pc quota in Schools for students from disadvantaged...

One out of every five children from the tribal talukas of Thane could be suffering from a serious heart ailment. This was the diagnosis of a medical camp conducted by the district health officer at Wada, 75 km from Thane, recently. Of the 125 children in the 4-15 age group, who underwent the echocardiogram test, 25 were detected with abnormal heart movements, setting off alarm bells in the local medical...

In yet another meeting scheduled for Saturday, education department officials and private Schools' heads would discuss draft rules of the Right to Compulsory and Free Education Act (RTE), 2009. Issues relating to the admission procedure, the reimbursement process and status of minority Schools would be brought up. "The centralized admission process and reimbursement to Schools are on priority list. Earlier, we had raised this issue with the administration and would...