-DNA The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) might be doing good for the rural poor in helping them boost their income, but the scheme has emerged as a big threat to the traditional arts and crafts, said Jaya Jaitley who has pioneered handicraft movement in India. Jaitley, head of Dastkari Haat Samiti, is in Ahmedabad with around 90 artisans from different pockets in Indian states to exhibit their...
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False promises by Mohan Rao
The claim that the Unique Identification project will facilitate the delivery of basic health services is dishonest. AMONG the many reasons cited for India to proceed with the Unique Identification (UID) project – that it will facilitate delivery of basic services, that it will plug leakages in public expenditure, that it will speed up achievement of targets in social sector schemes, and so on – the most specious is perhaps the...
More »PDS in peril by R Ramakumar
The promotion of the PDS as an Aadhaar application would fundamentally alter its form and character. NO scheme of the Indian government would be transformed more fundamentally by Aadhaar than the public distribution system (PDS). The nature of this transformation appears to be taking the form of a virtual dismantling of the PDS; even if a skeletal fair price shop (FPS, or ration shop) system continues to exist, it is likely...
More »Reforming the Press Council by AG Noorani
The new Chairman of the Press Council of India, Markandey Katju, wants to make it an instrument of mediation in addition to adjudication. THE appointment of Justice Markandey Katju, a former judge of the Supreme Court, as Chairman of the Press Council of India is about the best thing that has happened to that body in a long while. It is no exaggeration to say that the PCI commands little prestige...
More »MEA asked to comply with RTI Act
-The Times of India The Central Information Commission has directed the external affairs ministry to comply with the norms of statutory suo-moto disclosures to be made under the Right to Information Act. The move comes following a complaint that some information given on the ministry's website under Section 4 of the RTI Act, which relates to proactive disclosures by a public authority, was not complete and comprehensive. Complainant Saurabh Sharma alleged that the...
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