A parliamentary committee has recommended that the medium of instruction in technical and non-technical higher education institutes such as IITs in Hindi-speaking states should be Hindi and in other parts of India their respective local language. It said the use of English should be made optional.
As India gears up to honour its pravasis on January 9 to mark their contribution in the nation's development, rediff.com presents perspectives from eminent writers on the Diaspora. Kicking off the series is Ambassador T P Sreenivasan, who points out that the change of the Diaspora policy put in place by Rajiv Gandhi following the military coup in Fiji and his decision to stand by them, was the one defining moment in India's dealings with its overseas family.
'If you are a slave, nobody has any problem. The conflict starts when you question and ask for equal rights.'
This is the full text of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's address to media persons ahead of his interaction with them in New Delhi on Friday
Dr Sethuraman 'Panch' Panchanathan, senior vice president, Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development, ArizonaStateUniversity, was last week appointed to the United States National Science Board by President Barack Obama.
Highly skilled, English-speaking, and integrated into their communities, they are too valuable a resource to lose.
A bill seeking to explicitly ban caste discrimination has been introduced in the California Senate by a Democratic lawmaker, which, if passed, could make America's most populous state also the country's first to outlaw caste-based bias.
CM Stalin has a procedural problem. Nominating new ministers would entail his having to seek formal permission from governor R N Ravi. Stalin does not want to interact with the person of this governor, as far as possible, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Xi has called on Chinese border troops to enhance their capabilities in border defence and control to forge a "great wall of steel" along the country's borders, it said.
'English must be taught extremely well to all children in all schools, and especially so in those schools where the medium of instruction until Grade 5/8 is in the mother tongue/local language/regional language.'
Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh have emerged as the poorest states in India, according to Niti Aayog's first Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report. As per the index, 51.91 per cent population of Bihar is poor, followed 42.16 per cent in Jharkhand, 37.79 per cent in Uttar Pradesh. While Madhya Pradesh (36.65 per cent) has been placed fourth in the index, Meghalaya (32.67 per cent) is at the fifth spot. Kerala (0.71 per cent), Goa (3.76 per cent), Sikkim (3.82 per cent), Tamil Nadu (4.89 per cent) and Punjab (5.59 per cent) have registered the lowest poverty across India and are at the bottom of the index.
'When I started this, I just took it as an ordinary yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. Slowly we understood that this yatra has a voice and feelings'
During his four-day tour of the region which started on July 12, Xi met with officials.
We need transformative policies and incentives with purpose, especially in solar power and digital infrastructure.
The advisory was issued as thousands of Indians studying in Chinese medical colleges are currently stuck at home for over two years due to Beijing's COVID visa ban.
Dominic Xavier says there is an urgent need to implement the NEP and quickly reduce the gap in the pupil-teacher ratio.
President Pranab Mukherjee's recent visit to the Pacific Island nation is path-breaking, but much more needs to be done, says Dr Rahul Mishra.
The government on Wednesday approved the inclusion of certain communities in the lists of Scheduled Tribes in Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, fulfilling long-pending demands from these states.
Sisodia was arrested after nearly eight hours of questioning on various aspects of the excise policy for 2021-22, which the probe agency says suffered from irregularities both in its formulation and implementation, allegedly intended to benefit people with links to the AAP.
The coronavirus pandemic has not impacted India's long-term growth trajectory although it has delayed it and in this decade, the country will lead the global growth rates, Tata group chairman N Chandrasekaran said on Tuesday. Speaking at tech giant Microsoft's annual flagship event, Future Ready, he said it should be a national priority to enable access to healthcare and education using digital infrastructure for all in the country, considering how the acceleration of digital adoption during the pandemic has created a divide as many people, who do not have the means and access, have been left behind. "There are many things going for India. I think as the economy fully opens up post the pandemic, I believe that our growth will continue to get stronger.
Ajit Balakrishnan on how to arrest a worldwide decline.
Udayanidhi has handed over to the BJP one real issue to draw the line between it and the INDIA alliance, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Assam government wants to ban polygamy as "a component of the Uniform Civil Code" and will form a committee to examine whether the state legislature was empowered to prohibit the practice prevalent in parts of the state, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Tuesday.
'Welfare schemes are not a necessary evil, they are a necessary good.'
What some of our leaders were up to over the weekend...
A public interest litigation has been filed in the Bombay high court to challenge the decision taken last month by the Maharashtra government, allowing the sale of wine in supermarkets and walk-in stores in the state.
Ravi Sinha is described as "highly tech-savvy", and credited with infusing modern technology in the field of intelligence collection.
In his final address, the president said that the soul of India resided in "pluralism and tolerance.
Modi's BJP has promised more revdis or freebies for these assembly elections than ever before, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
The implementation of the NEP and four-year undergraduate programme were approved by the Standing Committee on Academic Matters and the Academic Council last week.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Friday security in the ocean needs to be strengthened as most of the narcotic drugs are shipped in Pakistan and go via Iran to Sri Lanka and Africa.
A domestic policy group would focus on issues related to service taxes, Data Protection Act and Indian Copyright Act. The international group would address global policy issues like WTO, besides visa and work permit matters.
In the last budget, then finance minister Arun Jaitley had allocated Rs 85,010 crore for the education sector which was later revised to Rs 83,625.86 crore.
'The pandemic had a significant impact on child trafficking.' 'With economic hardships, traffickers exploited the situation to target desperate parents and children.'
BJP veterans whom K Annamalai has reportedly sidelined are upset over his 'immature' way of handling allies, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
The substantially increased economic dualism may exert lasting negative influences which could include a reduced potential for economic growth; the persistence of a very weak employment and poverty situation; rising social and political discord; and heightened vulnerability to geopolitical challenges, cautions Shankar Acharya, former chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
India ranks among the top 50 economies overall in two pillars: market sophistication, 33, and knowledge and technology out-puts, 43
The government should keep the interest of unemployed youth paramount and bring out various policy aspects of this initiative, Varun said.
The most immediate challenge for growth is the disruption of the global economy brought about by the Ukraine war and related sanctions, the Covid shutdowns in China and the rising tide of inflation, points out Nitin Desai.
How can we call Bharat our Bhagya Vidhata? asks school manager.
