-PTI Salman Rushdie today said he does not need a visa to visit India and the government made it clear it would not stop him from coming. The author, reacting to an Islamic seminary’s opposition to his trip to the country, wrote on Twitter: “Regarding my India visit, for the record, I don’t need a visa.” Yesterday in a statement, Dar-ul Uloom Deoband vice-chancellor Maulana Abul Qasim Nomani said the “Indian government should...

Up against a formidable line-up of Army officials who were members of an inquiry panel that ended up taking away her job, a victim of alleged sexual harassment by the principal of an Army Public School in Jaipur came knocking on Defence Minister A.K. Antony's door here on Tuesday seeking justice. She was accompanied by the former MP and Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat and...

-Sify News   A single bamboo stick holds the thatched roof together, the discoloured floor serves as both bench and chair, the kids sit in neat rows and a man sits on a printed mattress. It is from humble rooms like this that a quiet education revolution is unravelling in this eastern Uttar Pradesh district that was associated in public memory not long ago for alleged involvement of some of its youth...

-IANS   Breaking the stereotypes associated with madrassas, a 50-year-old Islamic seminary here teaches subjects like personality development and home science, runs an elaborate teacher training programme, has a higher girl enrolment ratio and has students who are no less active on social networking websites than their counterparts in the metros. Welcome to Jamiatul Falah, a madrassa in Bilariyaganj town of Uttar Pradesh's Azamgarh's district that has kept pace with modern education. The...

The concept of integrating children from less privileged backgrounds with others in ‘elite schools’, as per the quota for children from Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) may have invited debates in the city, but the execution of the idea in some of the schools has already started showing results. There are some students, admitted under the scheme, who have not only done well for themselves but also set benchmarks for others with...