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509 govt school students in Punjab crack NEET, CM Mann says education key to ending poverty. Chandigarh, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Friday announced that the state government is putting into practice "out-of-the-box ideas" to advance the education system, which he described as a way to end poverty and social ills.

Addressing a gathering after felicitating students who cleared the NEET test, Mann said that the education sector had seen a paradigm change in the past three years with path-breaking decisions being taken by the state government.

Mann said, "This is the red letter day as 509 students from government schools have cracked the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for admissions into medical colleges," according to an official release.

He stated that education, healthcare, infrastructure, industry, sports, employment and the fight against drugs are the priorities of the government. 

Freebie or concession cards cannot eliminate poverty and other social menaces from the state but it is education alone that can open the key which can lift people out of this cycle by enhancing their level of living, he further said.

The chief minister informed that his government is laboring day and night to improve the standard of education to empower masses.

For the first time in the state, a mass campaign in the shape of "Yudh Nashesyan Virudh" has been started under which offenders of drugs are being arrested and action is being intensified, he informed.

Mann further averred that since assuming the charge of office his government is working towards "clearing the mess made by their predecessors for the last 70 years".

"Few of our youngsters received overage for government jobs due to the lackadaisical approach of previous governments," he said, adding that now in the last three years under the A government 54,000 youngsters have secured jobs strictly on merit basis.

Mann claimed that it is a "good omen" for the state where "reverse migration is taking place in Punjab as youths are leaving foreign land to return and join state government jobs." It is because the recruitment process is completely transparent.

Due to his government's initiative the faith of the youths in working with the state government have increased, abandoning the idea of going abroad, he further added.

But the chief minister also said that most of the brain drain had happened due to the "laid-back attitude of past regimes due to which large numbers of youths had earlier migrated from the state".

Mann further said that since the A government has made a course correction, a vast majority of students are joining the socio-economic development of the state by entering government services.

He further added that the initiatives taken by the state government to empower women in the state have paid off in such a way that girls are excelling in all the streams today and even outnumbering the boys.

Mann also pointed out that his government has been appointing seven women officers as deputy commissioners and eight women as senior superintendents of police.

In a move that can alter the education and governance dynamics in Karnataka, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah invited President Droupadi Murmu on Tuesday and sought her nod on seven important state bills moved by the Karnataka assembly. The sitting at Rashtrapati Bhavan is the state government's mirror of wanting quick changes for which they require the center's nod so that they could be enacted into legislations.

The day begins with The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Karnataka Amendment) Bill 2025 in the priority list. The bill, which seeks to overhaul the state RTE policy, has the potential to transform the regulation of private schools, reservation rules, and bulk admissions—issues that had been at the center of public outrage over the past three years.

Also awaiting approval is the Karnataka (Mineral Rights and Mineral Bearing Land) Tax Bill 2024, which focuses on imposing a tougher tax on mining of minerals. The bill has been interpreted as Karnataka's attempt to reclaim lost revenue from mining, particularly in mineral zones like Ballari and Chitradurga.

In order to advance enhanced governance and fiscal prudence, the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement (Amendment) Act 2025 will enhance stricter regulation of government spending, supplementing nationwide anti-corruption policy. Two others—The Registration (Karnataka Amendment) Bills 2024 and 2025 and The Notaries (Karnataka Amendment) Bill 2025—are intended to cut red-tape, streamline procedure, and possibly enable faster citizen services.

Incidentally, the package also includes the Karnataka Hindu Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowment (Amendment) Bill 2024, a possibly contentious reform with the potential to reverse temple income revenues and trusts in the state.

All seven bills fall under legislative areas of interest since they are subject to central concurrence, either because they cut across Union List matters or have national import potential. President Murmu's assent is thus automatic before they can be enacted into law.

The session follows the Siddaramaiah government's attempt to push profound structural reforms in education, taxations, and the government. Two years before Assembly elections, this legislative step can shape the legacy of the Chief Minister for a state renowned to sustain growth and accountability.

The government has begun preparations for a fresh socio-educational survey with chief minister Siddaramaiah shortlisting four new members to the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes.

"Four new members have been appointed to the commission — former IGP K Arkesh of Channapatna, lawyer Shivanna Gowda of Mysuru, assistant professor B Sumana of Mangaluru, and CM Kundagol, retired principal of Dharwad.". With these appointments, the panel is complete now under the chairmanship of Madhusudhan R Naik, a retired advocate-general who was named chairman in January," stated a senior government official close to the development. It was informed to the commission on Sunday.

"The commission will meet shortly and recommend to the government what to do on the proposed enumeration of the population," the official added.

The official added that the suggestions have been conveyed to the commission but the official orders are still awaited.

Though the commission can be assigned the task, the officials have spoken of the possibility of constituting a new committee for the purpose. Siddaramaiah has also requested his ministers to present their suggestions before deciding modalities.

Unlike the 2015 exercise that had a heavy dependence on schoolteachers and was delayed, the upcoming survey is likely to call on digital platforms to hasten data gathering, the official statement above stated.

Now that schools are in session, the government is weighing the possibility of using teachers after school hours and compensating them for their time, according to another official.

But the renewed drive for socio-educational survey has once again sparked opposition from dominant groups, such as Vokkaligas and Veerashaiva-Lingayats, who earlier criticized the Kantharaju report as biased and complained that it had underestimated their numbers.

On Sunday, the Samajika Nyaya Jagruthi Vedike cautioned the state against hastening into another survey. During a roundtable in Bengaluru, members raised questions about the necessity of a state-specific count when the Union government has already undertaken a commitment to a caste-based enumeration in the decadal census coming up.

Karnataka government has already lost 10 years in the guise of caste census. It was decided in the meeting to request the government not to waste the people's tax money and time on conducting another caste census," said Vishnukant Chatapalli, the representative of the forum.

He also added, "The caste census will be taken along with the population census by the central government. The caste census will incorporate social and educational details along with cultural information. The Centre will incur an expenditure of ₹13,000 crore for the same."

Contending that data collected by the Union alone would have constitutional validity, the forum called on the state to make the Kantharaju report public and desist from launching a parallel process. "If the state government does not stop conducting separate censuses of castes, legal recourse should be sought," Chatapalli said.

Blaming the government, BJP MLA V Sunil Kumar criticized the chief minister's changing stance on adopting the Hegde report.

Whatever pressure is exerted, we will not accept Jayaprakash Hegde's report. Chief minister Siddaramaiah has time and again stated that we will follow the recommendations of that report. But why did he back out after going to Delhi and coming back?" he questioned. "Whether or not the government accepts or puts into action the report is secondary. First, it should be made public for awareness.

Responding to these criticisms, Congress MLA Yathindra, Siddaramaiah’s son, blamed the previous governments for the delay in caste enumeration. “Had those administrations responded appropriately and moved forward with the earlier report, we wouldn’t be in a position where another survey is necessary,” he said, referring to the BJP and JD(S) governments’ inaction on the 2015 report.

During the annual general meeting Monday of the Prime Ministers Museum and Library (PMML) Society, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, members expressed their strong consensus that the issue of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi withdrawing the Jawaharlal Nehru papers needs to be pursued legally, The Indian Express learnt.

Apart from the Prime Minister who is also the president of the PMML Society, the 47th AGM included Union Ministers Rajnath Singh (vice-president), Nirmala Sitharaman, Dharmendra Pradhan, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Chairman Nripendra Mishra, and members such as BJP leader Smriti Irani, adman-lyricist Prasoon Joshi, and PMML's new Director Ashwani Lohani.

Although the issue of Sonia Gandhi appropriating a significant portion of donated Nehru documents – 51 cartons in 2008 – was brought up at great length during the previous AGM in February 2024, the subject arose for discussion again Monday during the 90-minute meeting at Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi.

Sources added a general agreement was reached that the documents relating to the nation's first Prime Minister are a "national treasure and must be returned to the museum as its rightful location to store his legacy".

At the 46th AGM last year, when the matter came up for discussion, it was decided by the members to seek a legal opinion regarding taking back donated papers. Consequently, in view of the legal opinion, for the first time, a letter was sent by the PMML administration to Sonia Gandhi’s office earlier this year, seeking return of the papers for scholars and historians.

This was the first that the museum administration placed on record, in an official missive to the Gandhi family, regarding Sonia Gandhi appropriating part of the papers from the Nehru collection, which they had donated to the museum decades back.

Sources indicated that no response had been received from the office of Gandhi. Sources said, on this point, that it was considered that the issue should be taken to court arguing that documents once gifted or donated cannot be withdrawn and therefore they still belong to the organisation and must be returned to its custody.

A source stated that it was also moved at the AGM that the issue was in relation to 2008 (the UPA regime) and that the organisation was now trying to correct the administrative loopholes of the pre-2014 period by asking for additional legal opinion in the issue and how it could be taken forward.

The matter of Sonia Gandhi reclaiming some portion of the private papers contributed by the Gandhi family was thoroughly debated during the AGM of February 13, 2024, presided over by Rajnath Singh and attended by Sitharaman and Pradhan and other members.

Members had a perception that those papers had to be withdrawn, and there was a consensus also that legal opinion had to be obtained on matters like "ownership, custodianship, copyright, and use of these archival collections" because the papers were given to the organisation by Indira Gandhi in 1971 (as successor of the Nehru papers) and later by Sonia Gandhi, following the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

The issue was brought before the 47th AGM as a follow-up to the previous AGM deliberations. The early legal advice suggests that the ownership of the papers is with the museum, even as the issue must be pursued on their return.

On January 15 this year, the PMML society and executive council were reconstituted with former Principal Secretary to Prime Minister, Nripendra Mishra, getting another five-year term as the organisation’s chairperson. There were several new entrants to the society including former Union Minister Smriti Irani, former NITI Aayog Vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar, retired Lt General Syed Ata Hasnain, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur and Sanskar Bharati’s Vasudev Kamath.

As per PMML records, the letters retrieved by Sonia Gandhi in 2008 are some of Nehru's letters to Jayaprakash Narayan, Edwina Mountbatten, Albert Einstein, Aruna Asaf Ali, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit and Babu Jagjivan Ram.

At the AGM on Monday, the Prime Minister also floated the idea of an India museum map, and proposed the establishment of a complete national database of all museums in the nation, as per a release made by the Ministry of Culture.

A compilation of all the legal struggles associated with the Emergency era can be done and stored in view of the fact that 50 years since the Emergency have passed, Modi stated, since June 25 this year is 50 years of the Emergency.

I want to study". This sincere desire the five-year-old had made when he was standing in front of CM Yogi Adityanath when he was taking Monday's Janata Darshan at his official residence. The dream took flight within three hours and the three-month-long wait got over for the father.

On Monday, CM was happy to see little Vachi (5) among the guests who had come to visit and seek his help. And as he read through her application, he teasingly asked her, "So you don't want to go to school?" To which Vachi had responded with a smile, "No, I do! Sign me up." When she inquired why she requested what course she was to pursue, she answered in a manner of a child by saying, "Oh, I do not know the name." Her truthful answer elicited smiles.

Shocked to the core by the suggestion, CM ordered her application to be forwarded to principal secretary (Home) Sanjay Prasad for admitting the girl child. The school accepted the girl in the evening, and dist's BSA was informed on the spot by the school.

Amit and Vachi thanked CM Yogi to the core.

Amit Kumar of Moradabad was day and night busy with the admission of Vachi, in CL Gupta World School under RTE. His endeavour succeeded on Monday when he eventually met the chief minister in Janta Darshan at Lucknow.

Amit, who is a Rapido bike taxi operator to earn a livelihood to support his family, had dropped wife Prachi and daughters Vachi and Aachi at the CM's house in the hopes of getting an answer.

Having met the CM, the family went towards the railway station in Lucknow to return home when, at 3pm, they got the news regarding the admission of Vachi.

Amit and Prachi were overwhelmed with emotion as they thanked CM Yogi Adityanath sincerely. "We are speechless. The CM did not listen to us just for once, he acted like a real caretaker of people. Uttar Pradesh daughters are brought up to be proud and respected in his government.".

When she was asked to tell about all the individuals that she had encountered, Vachi responded, "I met Yogi ji. I told him I should be admitted to school, and he assured me that he would get it arranged. He even gave chocolates and biscuits to me."

To make the life of school teachers easier and science education qualitative, National Institute of Technology (NIT) Rourkela conducted a piloting five-day chemistry teachers' workshop. Conducted under joint association with Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE), Odisha, the workshop was inaugurated on Sunday and is exclusively for those teachers who teach under CHSE board alone.

While so, over workshop-level personality development, the movement is vision-oriented, a sincere attempt towards re-intensifying pillars of science education of higher secondary level. NIT Rourkela, with its research-oriented, pedagogy innovation-oriented, and subject-enrichment-oriented education concordance, is enabling the facilitators to construct stronger pillars of theory and practice.

Volunteers from Odisha's distant areas — Angul and Bargarh, Ganjam, Jharsuguda, Sundargarh — with uneven exposure and common interest in teaching got attracted. Providing the participants so that they will be familiar with general knowledge of advanced subject matters of chemistry and newer class room techniques with higher participative students and simultaneous development between process of learning and student's life.

But one advantage of the program is getting a look at real practice. Teachers are being shown quality research equipment and quality research, some of it not even found in school lab facilities. "It's a special one-time chance for us to be working with equipment such as this," another of the Khorda delegates said. "The experience will definitely enable us to explain things in greater detail to our students."

NIT Rourkela chemistry faculty are conducting the workshops, which vary from organic synthesis and spectroscopy to curriculum development to student-centered pedagogy. The platform is also facilitating peer learning, with teachers across all locations sharing the issues and best practices with one another.

It's not books, one of the facilitators emphasized. "It's about empowering the teachers with the tool box to work the students, to experiment, and to kindle a fire for science."

Although the state was committed to improving science teaching, this kind of program has the capability to produce high-quality, effective, and confident teachers who will create scientists in the future.