-The New Indian Express When he was in Class IV, Binesh Balan had done manual jobs in his native Kolichal in Kasaragod to escape grinding poverty. KOZHIKODE: When he was in Class IV, Binesh Balan had done manual jobs in his native Kolichal in Kasaragod to escape grinding poverty.  Two decades on, the boy, now 29, belonging to the Mavilan tribal community, succeeded in developing an open banking software as a researcher...

-Newsclick.in The draft National Education Policy reinforces outdated ideas about the goals of a foundational literacy programme Many children in elementary classrooms across India cannot read and write proficiently, as demonstrated on an annual basis by the Annual Status of Education Reports (ASER). This affects other school-based learning, as well as functioning in societies and economies that prize literacy. Capabilities of young children It was heartening, therefore, to see a chapter devoted to “Foundational...

-Hindustan Times KC Rekha may have become a fisherwoman out of necessity, but she’s come to love her profession, despite the odds and uncertainty, despite her life being as complex as the tangled net in her vessel. Thrissur (Kerala): KC Rekha, a 45-year-old mother of four sits alone on an isolated beach of a Kerala fishing village at the crack of dawn, untangling a mess of nylon fishing nets on which her family’s...

-Deccan Herald Clarifies that publishing and displaying Aadhaar in public is prohibited The Centre has asked the universities not to make public Aadhaar number of PhD scholars, withdrawing the university grants commission's (UGC) instruction which required all of the varsities to upload the data of their students along with their unique identification numbers on their websites since last year. “It is informed that the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits...

-Hindustan Times The last few weeks have seen a spate of government notifications making Aadhaar mandatory for receiving the benefits of government programmes. The most recent orders relate to an Aadhaar requirement for children to access schools (even under their fundamental right to education), mid-day meals, supplementary nutrition (ICDS) and scholarships. These directives raise a number of ethical as well as practical questions, besides violating children’s right to education, nutrition and...