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Monday, 21 June 2021

TheFinePrint

By Neelam Pandey, Senior Associate Editor

The pandemic has severely affected the education sector and the spotlight has
remained on the conduct of exams. However, with schools closed for more than
a year now due to Covid, and classes being held virtually, it’s not the students

alone who are suffering. Private schools ThePrint spoke to said it's the teachers
who are bearing the brunt of the funds crunch, with many not paid full salary for
months. Kritika Sharma explores this issue in detail in this piece.

The Congress is trying to get its house in order in Punjab ahead of the assembly
elections next year, but even in the few states where it is in power, it has been
unable to implement several poll promises. In its 2018 election manifesto, the
Congress had said if voted to power in Chhattisgarh, it will frame a policy to

resolve the Naxal menace. But two and a half years later, the Bhupesh Baghel-
led government has failed to take steps towards framing a policy and finding a
peaceful solution to the Naxal violence, Prithviraj Singh reports.

Do political crossovers help the defectors? This is a question that has become a
debating point with the entry of several political leaders to the BJP. The entry of
Eatala Rajendar from the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and Jitin Prasada from the
Congress to the BJP this month came as an indicator of the latter’s conviction in

using defectors for the party’s expansion and consolidation. Read this in-depth
piece to understand who all switched over to the BJP as it started expanding.

Chandauli in Uttar Pradesh is one of India’s four most progressed districts since

the beginning of the Narendra Modi government’s Aspirational Districts
Programme, according to the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP)’s latest appraisal report. Among the best practices that pushed
Chandauli’s progress was the black rice experiment in the district. Samyak

Pandey explains how it all started.