How the brain tackles reading

A new India-focused study provides fresh insights into the subject

One of India’s enduring failures, education, has meant that the country has, by far, the largest number of adult illiterates in the world.  In 1951, in the first post-Independence Census, literacy was just 18 per cent overall (male 27.2 per cent, female 8.9 per cent). By 1991, literacy had risen, to 52 per cent (male 64 per cent; female 39.3 per cent). By 2011, literacy was at 74 per cent (male 82 per cent; female 65.5 per cent). There are massive discrepancies between states, and between rural and urban areas and differences in per capita/ caste, community, etc. 

In 2014,