Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Saturday said the BJP is in favour of reservation in promotion and against introducing the creamy layer provision for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe categories. The central government headed by Narendra Modi is committed to protect the rights of SCs and STs, he said and expressed support to the demand of the states SC and ST MLAs to include "reservation" meant for them in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution so that they cannot be challenged in courts. The demand of the legislators belonging to SC and ST categories from all parties came in the wake of the recent Supreme Court order asking the Centre to revise the list of reserved categories for providing quotas so that benefits trickle down to the needy. The MLAs said the apex court judgment virtually advocated for implementing the provision of creamy layer in the reservation meant for SCs and STs. Sushil Modi said, When two Constitution benches ruled in ...

Sixteen more people including two minors from nine districts tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday, taking the total number of cases to 595 in Bihar, a top health department official said. Seven of the 16 fresh cases are migrant people from other states, Health Departments Principal Secretary Sanjay Kumar said in a tweet. "We are ascertaining their further infection trail," Kumar said. Of the 16 new cases, three each are from Muzaffarpur and Arwal, two each from Begusarai, Munger, Nalanda and one each from Vaishali, Bhojpur, Siwan, Sheikhpura districts, the Principal Secretary said. Five people have died of the disease so far in Bihar which is now left with 272 active cases while 318 have recovered. The number of samples tested so far at seven facilities in Patna, Bhagalpur, Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga is 32,767.

The West Bengal Health Department on Saturday formed teams to support surveillance and monitoring of treatment at five hospitals treating COVID-19 patients in the city. The team members will pay regular visits to these hospitals and send reports to the department, the state government said in an order. The department has also set up a dedicated help line for issues regarding the non-availability of PPEs and other supplies. The feedback and suggestions will be duly recorded and acted upon by the state government for appropriate remedial measures, the order said. The West Bengal government has also constituted a team for guidance on containment activities in different districts of the state.

In the wake of the gas leak at a factory in Visakhapatnam, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has issued detailed guidelines for restarting industries after the lockdown and the precautions to be taken for the safety of the plants as well as the workers. In a communication to all states and union territories, the NDMA said due to several weeks of lockdown and the closure of industrial units, it is possible that some of the operators might not have followed the established standard operating procedures. As a result, some of the manufacturing facilities, pipelines, valves may have residual chemicals, which may pose risk. The same is true for the storage facilities with hazardous chemicals and flammable materials, it said. The NDMA guidelines said while restarting a unit, the first week should be considered as the trial or test run period after ensuring all safety protocols. Companies should not try to achieve high production targets. There should be 24-hour sanitisation ..

At least 34 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Bihar, raising the total count in the state to 629, a top health department official said on Sunday. Of the 34, 11 hail from Begusarai, seven each from Saharsa and Madhepura, five, including a woman, from Rohtas, two from Darbhanga and one each from Khagaria and Araria districts, Sanjay Kumar, the principal secretary of the state health department, said. "We are ascertaining the infection trail. These are yesterday's results received late in the night," Kumar said, adding that seven out of 34 patients were minors. Barring Jamui, all 37 districts in the state have reported coronavirus cases. The number of active cases in the state currently stands at 306. Altogether, 318 people have recovered so far. Bihar has witnessed five COVID-19 fatalities -- one each from Rohtas, Munger, Vaishali, East Champaran and Sitamarhi districts. All five of them had pre-existing ailments. Munger has accounted for the maximum number of cases in the ...

The Indian automotive sector will continue to face challenges related to non-availability of labour and concerns over health and safety management on the shop-floor following the coronavirus pandemic, which may force firms to accelerate adoption of digital technologies in manufacturing, a report by consultancy firm EY said. This health crisis will settle gradually and would leave a profound impact on people and the ways of working especially on the shop-floor. There will be several changes to existing working norms and guidelines that organisations will need to abide by in order to ensure safety at the workplace, said the report titled 'Now, next and beyond: Auto factory of the future'. Elaborating on how automotive shop-floors will evolve and adopt digital technologies post COVID-19, the report said automobile companies will now have to rebuild and reinvent a new ecosystem to accommodate the new normal that is likely to emerge. "The auto sector will continue to face challenges ...

He hops off a helicopter, whips off his shades and makes a dash through the grounds towards his home to give his mother a surprise, but there she is, waiting at the door with a pooja thali' in her hand. That admittedly cheesy scene between Shah Rukh Khan and Jaya Bachchan from the blockbuster Hindi film Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham was playing in Sonali Puri's mind when she was on a Mumbai-Jammu flight to give her mother a surprise last month. Her mother was at the door just as she had imagined but instead of a thali' was a hand sanitiser! Good hygiene is a blessing in times of coronavirus, my mother told me, laughed the 37-year-old. That was in mid-March, a few days before the coronavirus forced lockdown began on March 25. And home in Jammu is where Puri still is, the short vacation turning into extended mother-daughter downtime, both recalibrating their equations as they spend focused time with each other after years. This Mother's Day, the first time in years perhaps that Puri has been .

Authorities in Jammu and Kashmir carried out nearly 1,000 surprise inspections and lifted 62 samples of different food items for screening since the beginning of this month, an official spokesperson said on Sunday. The special drive by the Food Safety Wing of Food and Drugs Administration Department was necessitated amidst growing concern that some unscrupulous traders can take advantage of the lockdown imposed by the government due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. "During the special drive, commenced on May 1, the enforcement staff carried out 996 inspections, lifted 62 samples of different food items like mustard oil, til oil, spices, milk and dates, and destroyed food items, which included vegetables, fruits, milk amounting to Rs 25,000," the spokesperson said. He said four Food Business Operators (FBOs) were also fined for violating the Food Safety and Standards(FSS) Act. The drive also led to seizure of560 kg ghee and 91 kg of spices after lifting statutory samples that have ...

The Yenepoya medical college hospital at Deralakatte here has become the first private hospital in Dakshina Kannada district to get coronavirus (COVID-19) testing approval. The laboratory at the hospital has received the nod from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to conduct tests for COVID-19, a release here said. Dakshina Kannada will now have two centres for coronavirus tests, the first one being the district Wenlock hospital, the designated hospital for Covid-19. ICMR has approved 33 testing centres in the state of which 21 are government hospitals and 12 are private hospitals.

A special train carrying 1,140 migrant workers stranded here in the lockdown has left Mangaluru railway station for Jharkhand. Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel and Vedavyas Kamath, MLA, were present at the railway station on Saturday night when the train left. Kamath said the workers who had registered on the state governments Seva Sindhu portal were brought to the railway station in Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation buses. A health check-up was carried out before they boarded the train. The district administration also provided food packets and water to the migrants at the station. Three more trains will leave from Mangaluru for Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand soon, he said. Meanwhile, in a statement, Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner Sindhu P Rupesh said train services are being arranged for migrant workers who have registered their names on the Seva Sindhu portal. The workers will be informed when trains are arranged to their destinations and they .

Azaan is an integral part of the faith, not the gadget, says veteran writer-lyricist Javed Akhtar, asking that the Islamic call to prayer on loudspeakers should be stopped as it causes "discomfort" to others. In a tweet on Saturday, Akhtar wondered why the practice was 'halaal' (allowed) when it was, for nearly half a century in the country, considered 'haraam' or forbidden. "In India for almost 50 years Azaan on the loud speak was Haraam. Then it became Halaal and so halaal that there is no end to it, but there should be an end to it. Azaan is fine but loud speaker does cause of discomfort for others. I hope that atleast this time they will do it themselves (sic)," Akhtar tweeted. When a user asked his opinion on loudspeakers being used in temples, the 75-year-old writer said everyday use of speakers is a cause of concern. "Whether it's a temple or a mosque, if you're using loudspeakers during a festival, it's fine. But it shouldn't be used everyday in either temples or mosques. "For

As part of a stimulus package for the coronavirus-hit economy, the government is working on a credit guarantee scheme to enable banks to provide additional 10-15 per cent working capital to MSMEs for payment of wages, sources said. Currently, banks are offering an extra line of credit of 10 per cent based on working capital limits, which the government intends to increase further. Since units are closed due to lockdown and there has been no operation for the past two months, most micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) do not have money for paying wages and financial assistance for them is under consideration of the government, the sources said. One of the proposals under consideration is to provide 10-15 per cent additional line of credit by banks over the working capital limit of the MSME sector, which is the largest employer in the country after agriculture. This loan, especially for wage payment, will be backed by a proposed credit guarantee fund so that lenders' money is ...

The Dakshina Kannada district administration has made arrangements to quarantine non- resident citizens arriving here by flights from various countries amid the COVID-19 crisis. The first repatriation flight from Dubai carrying 170 passengers is expected to land at the Mangaluru International Airport (MIA) here on Tuesday. Nearly 1,000 rooms at lodges, hostels and service apartments have been kept ready as quarantine facilities for the NRIs. The authorities have reserved rooms in 18 hotels, lodges and six hostels for the mandated two-week quarantine. The returnees will be given the option of staying either at hotels or in government facilities, sources said. All the quarantine facilities will have the services of doctors to monitor the health of those coming from abroad. Around 3,000 Indian citizens have sought repatriation to DK and Udupi districts from different countries, sources said. Some of them will arrive in ships once the services are started to the New Mangalore ..

Several NGOs working in the disability sector are facing severe financial crunch as most of the funds and donations they would earlier get has been diverted towards tackling the COVID-19 crisis. Prashant Verma, general secretary, National Association for the Blind, says he could just pay 65 per cent salary to his employees in the last two months due to financial crunch and if no fresh donations are made he does not have any money to pay his 120 staff members this month. "We feel as if we are at the end of the line," he told PTI. Verma said his organisation used to get grants from many companies under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and even from individuals, especially during March as it was the end of the financial year. "But this year we didn't get any money. Some of the companies, which even committed to us, are saying that this time they have to think about their own survival. Many individuals (who earlier donated) don't have money to support us. A lot of the money is ...

Left without jobs and desperate to return home amid the lockdown, 10 migrant labourers have set off on foot from Pune in Maharashtra for their native place hundreds of kilometres away in Uttar Pradesh. The Pune administration has asked the officials concerned to make necessary arrangements for such migrants at hotels and halls available on highways in the district and set up camps for them, in the wake of the death of 16 migrant labourers after being run over by a goods train in Aurangabad. The 10 migrant workers, all natives of Allahabad district in Uttar Pradesh, started walking to their homes from Pune on Saturday evening after losing their jobs and finding to difficult to sustain their livelihood here. "We all were working as construction labourers in Pune. Now we don't have food to survive. Therefore, we have started for our native place in Uttar Pradesh," one of the labourers from the group said. Pune District Collector Naval Kishore Ram has ordered tehsildars and ..

A number of new NCERT textbooks for class I to class XII have been designed to encourage children to question social prejudices, discrimination and inequalities. This is a conscious reversal of the earlier trend where textbooks reinforced prevailing stereotypes, notes Deepti Priya Mehrotra.

The UGC has given the green signal to a plethora of value-added, job-oriented diploma programmes in colleges and varsities. An Education World report.

The new government's higher priority to education is seeing experts and activists revisit the 40-year old Kothari Commission recommendations for a common school system. Summiya Yasmeen reports.

To mark its fifth anniversary, EducationWorld asked several educationists and industry leaders with proven commitment to improving the education system to write prescriptions for a renaissance of Indian education. Dilip Thakore threads the responses together.

A draft curriculum for teacher training acknowledges several problems in preparing teachers properly for the classroom, but it's unclear if the proposed revisions would adequately tackle these. The typical classroom in India is nothing like the environment that teachers train in, and this, say experts, must change first. Deepa A reports.

The central government's own figures indicate that many as two-thirds of those eligible for secondary education remain outside the school system today. A Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) committee estimates that 88,562 additional classrooms will be required in 2007-08 and over 1.3 lakh additional teachers. Deepa A reports.

A wide range of programmes and strong financial support have helped Tripura raise access to education for its tribal population. Ratna Bharali Talukdar on the many incentives that anchor the state's efforts to bridge the learning gap between tribals and non-tribals.

The disconnect between civil society and government has led to successive generations of policy and implementation failures. The India Together editorial.

Videh Upadhyay argues that adivasis will benefit greatly if the Provision of Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act (PESA) is implemented on the ground by the state governments.

Male prostitution, both forced and voluntary, is a reality that is often forgotten in the discourse on gender rights and issues. Tejaswini Pagadala throws light on the lives of male sex workers in the country.

The Centre for Women's Development Studies (CWDS) has developed long-overdue indicators to assess gender sensitivity in governance.

Geeta Seshu recalls the women of 2003, whose lives offered hope for improved rights tomorrow, and also reminded us of the failures we live with today.

March 8 remains a valuable vantage point, a time to take stock and look ahead. In fact, significant events over the past year-and-a-half invite fresh thinking on women's issues. We saw "empowered" women, but also saw new victims, notes Mary E John.

Despite a slew of legislative measures to prevent sex determination tests, medical technology continues to be misused, resulting in sex ratios skewed against women. Shoma Chatterji

At a time when the position of women in India and their struggles in society are at the centre of public attention, it seems apt to invoke the legacy of one who was truly the pioneer of women's studies and activism in the country. Shoma A Chatterji pays tribute to Vina Mazumdar.

Does inequality engender crime? S Venkatraman presents a graphical exposition of data from a recent WEF report and the NCRB to unravel the many layers of inequality and violence against women in India.

A severe drought and acute water and electricity shortage is ending self-sufficient agri-livelihoods in the six districts of Madhya Pradesh's Bundelkhand region. Sachin Kumar Jain and Sumika Rajput ring the warning bells.

Even as many pockets of the state, including its capital, battle the ravages of development and consumerism, a couple of villages visited by the author stand as examples of resilient local economies and lifestyles. Aditya Vikram Rametra describes what he saw here.

There are four ideas for a Lokpal and a 'Sense of the House' resolution of Parliament itself before the standing committee whic begins work shortly. The battle for Lokpal is far from over, writes Mathew Prasad Idiculla.

For seven-year-old Sandhya and her siblings, totally dependant on their mother who ekes out a living by making beedis, the state government's relief package, announced nearly 18 months ago, is simply not enough. Many more suffer the same fate. P N Venugopal reports.

Passed in 2005, the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act could have been an effective tool to ensure redress for victims of domestic abuse. But an understaffed implementation body has made it yet another selective and often toothless piece of legislation, finds Puja Awasthi.

Drawing upon the growing incidence of child abandonment in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, Tejaswini Pagadala looks at the phenomenon through a broader lens and explores possible ways, including adoption, to mitigate the evil.

From biogas to solar cookers and improved cookstoves, from agricultural tools to drudgery reducing technologies, most research and development in appropriate technologies has not been backed-up by appropriate market incentives. In contrast, hi-tech is totally market driven, says Sudhirendar Sharma.

Can we tap into the power of crowds and popular fashion to address persistent poverty? And what would such an effort look like, wonders Gijs Spoor.

The Age of Consent is a clarion call to implausible action. But maybe that's the point - to urge that we ask why the obviously good outcomes seem so unlikely.

Kalpana Sharma looks at the implications of the Nisha Sharma episode for our society.

The key to understanding information and communication technologies is that their potential for development does not lie in their electronic wizardry, but rather in the information that is communicated by their use, and the subsequent informed actions of citizens. Ashwin Mahesh on the much-touted ICTs.

India cannot afford not to take a proactive approach to migration. In particular, adaptation measures in key sectors are needed to improve resilience and reduce the pressure on migration from climate change, writes Sujatha Byravan.

If women cannot step out of their homes and offices without the fear of being assaulted for no other reason than their gender, then clearly there is something very wrong, writes Kalpana Sharma.

However imperfect, the National Commission for Women should not be disbanded. Instead, it needs to be debated and held accountable to its original mandate, writes writes Kalpana Sharma.

Frederick Noronha reports on the success of World Comics India, which has created successful material, especially for the regional press.

Conceived as an anti-poverty effort, the Navodayam project in Andhra Pradesh has grown with government support into a full-fledged media entity taking up coverage of serious local issues. Its members see themselves playing a vital role, and making a difference to the lives of lakhs of women in their districts. Shoma Chatterji reports.

The rural Muslim women of Murshidabad district in West Bengal have circumvented religious curbs and successfully used a prevalent religious tradition to eke out a living as well as create social awareness. Ajitha Menon has more.

At the crux of Ekbalpur's women boxers' passion lies a sense of liberation and recognition that they do not get from anything else. Sudhiti Naskar reports.

Motivated by the media attention in Nandigram, six volunteers of Child Rights and You decided to examine how the urban poor are faring against State-sponsored eviction. Shoma Chatterji reports.