Violence in West Bengal’s western districts has reached crisis proportions. Each day, one or more cadre member or sympathizer of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPM] is killed either by Maoists or the Trinamul Congress (TMC). The Maoists have found common cause with the TMC, a breakaway from the Congress Party in Bengal. Mamata Banerjee, whose authoritarian populism draws from both Juan and Evita Peron, leads the TMC. Backed...

Government science institutions across India may be able to earn labels that certify them as gender-friendly places under new proposals from a national task force on women in science. The 14-member government task force has also called for an end to some unwritten rules widely practised during recruitment to scientific institutions, including one that denies a spouse appointment in the same institution. The recommendations from the task force, which was...

The United Progressive Alliance’s flagship scheme, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), could have saved the day for India when the world fought against rising job losses on account of century’s worst ever recession , says a report by the International Labour Organisation. “There has been much progress in extending social protection through NREGA, which helped in maintaining levels of consumption and poverty,” the report on Global Employment Trends 2010...

Activists realise it takes a fight to translate democracy from thin paper to thick action In the winter of 1997, advocate Ashok Agarwal filed a petition in the Supreme Court opposing the nearly 400 per cent hike in school fees. This was the year the Fifth Pay Commission recommendations were implemented and the salaries of teachers shot up. Parents trying to cope with the overall price rise were suddenly hit by...

Jharkhand has pulled off a remarkable turnaround in funds utilisation for the Centre’s flagship rural Employment scheme, spending around Rs 500 crore in just over four months after September 2009 when it was pulled up by the MGNREGS director in New Delhi for poor implementation. Of Rs 1,600 crore allocated so far to the state under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme for the current fiscal (April 2009 to...