It is time to separate people's real needs from the arbitrary assessments of poverty that have guided Indian governments India's poverty line has always been a matter of huge debate, but it was a discussion mostly confined to economists and policymakers. But the matter has now gone public, following a row about an affidavit from the planning commission to the supreme court of India, in which the official poverty line was...

Rs. 72 crore fund meant to stop chronic malnutrition and hunger deaths among the state’s 90,000 Sahariya tribals unspent or used for welfare of officials Baran, Rajasthan: The consequences of careless, uncaring governance in Jaipur and Delhi-both ruled by the Congress-are proving deadly to India’s poorest tribals and providing a warning to the dangers inherent in India’s upcoming multi-billion dollar social-security scheme. At a time when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA)...

As the Right to Information Act (RTI) celebrated the sixth year of its coming, there has been much heated discussion, often emotional, of the benefits that it has brought and also the challenges with which it has confronted government. This debate came to a head with the prime minister’s inaugural address to the Annual Convention of the Central Information Commission on October 14. It is accepted in all circles that the...

The tribal people of Chhattisgarh are in an extremely dangerous situation, caught as they are between the state forces and the Maoists. THIRTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD Soni Sori, an Adivasi schoolteacher from Chhattisgarh, was arrested in Delhi on October 4 on charges of acting as a conduit between the Essar group and the Maoists, the former accused of giving “protection money” to the latter. On October 7, she moved the Delhi High Court to...

Why is it that the Anna Hazare-led movement against corruption does not seek to have the Lokpal cover NGOs, corporate houses and the corporate media? Gautam Navlakha (gnavlakha@gmail.com) is a member of the People’s Union for Democratic Rights, Delhi.   It would be churlish to dismiss “Team Anna’s” mass mobilisation which is an assertion of our collective right to protest. This is especially so in view of the fact that after having waited...