The report presents a mixed picture. Over the past 25 years, there have been notable improvements in child well-being in the group of countries examined in this report: steady decline in child mortality, overall reduction in adolescent suicide and increase in school completion rates. But the last five years have …
ON SEPTEMBER 20, 2004 India successfully launched Edusat, so becoming the first country in the world with a satellite exclusively reserved for educational purposes. The first operational flight of the 2000-kg class GSVL rocket
Shankar Sharma, vice-chairman of National Planning Commission (NPC) of Nepal, recently admitted that the country would be unable to achieve the Millennium Development Goals if the Maoist activity was not curbed immediately. This is the first such statement by a senior government official. According to government estimates, nearly two-thirds of …
In a small house in the back alleys of H D Kote, Mysore, Karnataka, schoolteachers are being taken to task. They are presenting quarterly reports on their work to a parents' association, but the occasion is almost festive and not acrimonious. This is not the regular parents-teacher meeting in a …
The Common Minimum Programme of the United Progressive Alliance lets go of the opportunity to present a bold new vision to conserve the environment through sustainable development. GIVEN the excitement generated by the way in which the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) came to power in May, one could be …
Its infertile land, lack of irrigation facilities and feudal social order contribute to make Bundelkhand in Uttar Pradesh one of India's most backward regions. But over the past eight years, things have started looking up in Jalaun and Mahoba districts of the area. Irrigation facilities have improved, food insecurity is …
Panchayati raj institutions are considered to be an important organ of participatory democracy. The basic idea behind establishing these grassroots-level bodies was to decentralise power and resources from the national and state capital to villages, to ensure people could administer their socio-economic and political life as per local needs. But …
THE UNION minister for human resource development's election-eve decision to slash Indian Institute of Management (IIM) fees by a third has created a storm. The most vocal lot are the faculty and management of the premier schools, and industry captains, who employ their products. The reaction from the minister and …
On the evening of January 24, social activists Sarita and Maheshkant attended a meeting at Shabdo village in Bihar's Gaya district. Soon after the villagers saw them off, they heard gunshots. They ran down to the main road in the neighbouring Rajabigha village and found Sarita lying in a pool …
This paper builds an analytical and practical framework for using resources more effectively by making services work for poor people. It focuses on services that have the most direct link with human development – education, health, water, sanitation and electricity – and uses examples of service delivery from India, elsewhere …
a closer-knit South Asian community is not beyond the realms of possibility now. At the 12th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (saarc) summit in Islamabad from January 4-6, leaders of the region took some of the boldest steps ever since the grouping was first created in 1985. They agreed …
http://earthtrends.wri.org/ It is a must-bookmark site for anyone interested in environmental and development issues. It offers up-to-date facts and figures as well as analyses of environmental trends and policy initiatives. EarthTrends is the information portal of the World Resources Institute (wri), a us-based environmental think tank. The site has ten …
• Developing countries devote more than a third of their budgets on education, healthcare, water and sanitation services, but little is actually spent on the poor • The poor often pay more than the rich for the same goods and travel longer distances to avail basic services • India's richest …
Ladakh was opened to tourism in 1971. Since then the tourist inflow has increased several times over (see graph: Welcome to Ladakh). Though Ladakh gets more foreign tourists, domestic tourists have increased recently. The biggest tourist activity is trekking and jeep safaris; the biggest tourist attractions of Ladakh are its …
In Ladakhi, lango khel means conquering the highest point of a pass in the mountains. In Ladakhi schools, it means the matriculation (class X) examination. From 1947 to 1998, matriculation results in Leh district hovered between 0-5 per cent. The reasons are not difficult to fathom. Children grew up speaking …
