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 …
Motion and change are the sum total of a glacier's life. These massive ice-fields were for long considered a delightful compromise between the seasonal variations in snow level. However, the balance of nature has now melted into the past. Despite looking the picture of tranquillity while metamorphosing, glaciers are today …
It was August 15, 2001, Independence Day, in an adivasi village of Bastar in Chhattisgarh. Two primary school teachers had invited me, the only adult literate in the village, to unfurl the national flag. I had arrived, but one of the teachers was absent, owing to a week-long drinking spree. …
a severe water crisis spawning an acute shortage of textbooks? Strange but true. Karnataka's school students recently became unsuspecting victims amid this bizarre turn of events. It so transpired that the Mysore Paper Mills (mpm) stopped functioning as its water supply was disrupted due to the drying up of Bhadra …
till about a year ago, Gauzia Begum Mohammed, 40, and Velimela Kalavathy, 35, residents of the Bandalguda village of Andhra Pradesh, were counted among the 35 crore Indians who could not read or write. Not anymore. Both have learnt to read. Gauzia can now sign her name and Velimela knows …
The information technology (IT) revolution has finally reached Afghanistan. The country's first batch of IT students recently graduated from Kabul University with industry-standard certificates in computer networking skills. Among the 17 graduates, six are women, heralding new hope that educational discrimination would finally end in Afghanistan. The UN-supervised, Cisco Systems-funded …
ncert Textbook The new National Council of Educational Research and Training (ncert) textbook on mathematics for class 1 is a welcome change from the earlier dull version. The layout is more attractive and multicoloured illustrations abound. But there is a major drawback. Most of the pictures seem to have been …
The Afghanistan government and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) will begin a new training programme for teachers before the new school year begins next month. Four million Afghan children are expected to return to school, many of them for the first time since the ouster of the Taliban regime. More …
The brief history of The Royal Indian Engineering College puts in proper perspective British attempts to colonise nature, resulting in disastrous consequences for populations throughout the empire. The British Raj's grand scheme for engineers envisaged a role extending far beyond mere designing of construction projects. This piece delves into an …
Elementary education is tricky business. This experience would be smoother for both the children and their teachers if there were tools that helped children experience
Is scientific research in India on a downslide? The diminishing number of scientific papers published by Indian scientists seems to point that way. The Indian scientific community, getting ready for yet another edition of the Indian Science Congress
http://www.echoupal.com Harnessing technology for the Indian farmer. That is what this unique web-based initiative of ITC's International Business Division wishes to do. Combining a broad set of online resources and a network of around one thousand kiosks, the site claims to reach rural farmers in about 6,000 Indian villages. It …
To what extent has the Global Environment Facility (gef) succeeded in poverty alleviation through its biodiversity projects around the world? To begin with, we must understand that any poverty alleviation benefit is purely incidental to gef projects. The gef's focus remains biodiversity conservation as defined by the donor countries. Poor …
in a letter to all state chief ministers, Union minister for environment and forests T R Baalu questioned the appointments to pollution control boards (pcb) that were made without following the stipulated requirements in the acts. He directed that appropriate persons be appointed for the key positions and incumbents, not …
What is the traditional knowledge digital library (TKDL)? The tkdl essentially consists of information from 35,000 shlokas (verses) and formulations in 14 commonly available books on ayurveda, like Sarangadhara samhita and Bharat bhaisajya ratnakar. tkdl would have information on the medicines, the botanical and common names of the plants used, …
In 1994, P Pushpangadan, then director, Tropical Botanical Research Institute, Vellore, visited the botanical garden in Warsaw, Poland. A board indicating a
A woman in her mid-twenties, probably of European descent, is trying to explain something to a group of Bhil tribals in village Tejgadh, Chhota Udaipur block, about 90 kilometres east of Vadodara city, Gujarat. Huddled, in a makeshift building on a 10-acre plot, all those present pour over a couple …
It has all the elements of a slugfest among eminent personalities in the public sphere. It would have made great entertainment; only it has to do with education. Science education, actually, in village schools with poor facilities. In an August 8 order, Amita Sharma, secretary (elementary education) to the government …
In an attempt to bridge the digital divide, Bhutan's planning commission secretariat is establishing an information network in all its 20 administrative districts (dzongkhags). The project
