Education, a powerful tool to empower people to live a dignified life: PM

October 29th, 2009 GANGTOK - Vice President Hamid Ansari inaugurated the Regional Conference on "Right to Education with Special Reference to Sikkim and its impact on Legal Awareness Campaign" here today. The conference was organized as part of the on-going Golden Jubilee celebrations of the High Court of Sikkim.

October 5th, 2009 NEW DELHI - A Community Radio Station will start functioning at Union Park Residents Association, Khar Bandra, Mumbai. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has has signed a Grant of Permission Agreement for establishing, maintaining and operating a Community Radio Station.

September 3rd, 2009 NEW DELHI - To empower soldiers educationally and to provide them with an opportunity of a second career option after retirement, the Indian Army has come out with a plan according to which soldiers who join service after school can study for a degree in market driven courses. The Indian Army will tie up with the Indira Gandhi National Open University to set up community colleges on the pattern of the US system of community colleges in its cantonments and other defence establishments to impart education in market-driven courses and soft skill programmes.

August 26th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Knowledge Commission Chairman Sam Pitroda has called for the application of information and communication technology (ICT) in the field of education, health, environment and agriculture in order to bring in a generational change among the Indian masses. "The key in terms of what next is to focus on five to six key areas.

August 19th, 2009 NEW DELHI - For more than half of urban families planning and funding for their child's education takes priority over investing in retirement plans or medical insurance, a survey released Wednesday said. The Young Scholar Insights survey conducted by Life Insurance Company Aviva found that 67 percent of 2,250 respondents in 10 cities surveyed thought investing in child's education if the first priority.

August 19th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The country's premier long distance education varsity, the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has collaborated with nearly a dozen universities in as many countries to develop skills among 10 million rural people in the next six years. The aim is to make rural people skilled.

August 3rd, 2009 GUWAHATI - In a special endeavour to empower young women, especially the militancy-affected victims, a multi-skill and leadership development programme was organised recently in Guwahati. Organised by the North Eastern Girls Students Association in collaboration with IGNOU Institute of Vocational Education and Training, Shillong, the three-week programme was first of its kind.

July 15th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Wednesday said that communalism should not be the agenda of education. Initiating a debate on the Demands for Grants for the human resource development (HRD) ministry in the Lok Sabha, former HRD minister and BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi alleged that his successor Arjun Singh tried to play a communal card in order to please the minorities.

June 9th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal on Tuesday said the Government wants Madrassa institutions should impart professional training along with religious teachings for Muslim youths' empowerment. Sibal, however, has also stated that that the ministry would not interfere with the religious teachings in madrassas.

May 19th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Congress chief Sonia Gandhi Tuesday said verdict 2009 is both 'exhilarating and sobering' and that the mandate comes with 'onerous responsibilities.' 'We have won an election but also undertaken a serious obligation,' she said while addressing the newly elected MPs at a meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) here. Gandhi, who proposed the name of Manmohan Singh as the CPP leader and the prime minister, said : 'We have awakened new hopes, and it is now our task to respond to the very aspirations that have brought to us this day to this hall in these numbers.' She said that a long and difficult election had come to an end, with a result that is 'both exhilarating and sobering'.

February 15th, 2009 NEW DELHI - In order to empower panchayats and have transparent and efficient accountability systems, the government has proposed to expand the Panchayat Empowerment and Accountability Incentive Scheme (PEAIS) by making suitable allocations. 'EAIS is an existing scheme under the central sector plan which has been recognized as a powerful instrument to incentivise states to devolve funds, functions and functionaries and set up an institutional framework for such devolution,' said External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee while presenting the interim budget in Lok Sabha Monday.

February 11th, 2009 PALAKKAD - The Kerala cabinet has approved the adoption of a new policy to ensure gender equality and prevent crime against women, Pinarayi Vijayan, state secretary of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) said here Thursday. Vijayan, who is on a tour of the state, told reporters that the main objective of floating the new policy was to ensure social justice for women.

February 2nd, 2009 JAIPUR - The Congress had always upheld the cause of weaker sections and farmers and would continue trying to empower them, party president Sonia Gandhi said here Tuesday. Addressing a rally to thank Congress workers who had helped bring the party back to power in the state, Gandhi said: 'When the Congress was in power in the state, we had taken up the cause of farmers and weaker sections of the society.

January 21st, 2009 MUMBAI - She may be at the centre of all the controversies surrounding Sanjay Dutt's family feuds and political choices, but the fiery Manyata is unfazed as she hits out at her husband's 'fair-weather friends' and says she is the 'barricade between him and those who want to use him'. 'Wherever there's power, there's bound to be a lot of conspiracy hovering around that source of power.

January 12th, 2009 MUMBAI - Apart from filmmaking and acting, veteran actor Anupam Kher wants to help underprivileged children by launching an education programme of the School Of Life that he runs. 'We want to provide education to the disadvantaged kids, children who were born in impoverished families, or were destitutes by destiny or forced to beg and feed themselves on the street,' Anupam, who has also started his acting school Actor Prepares, told IANS.