In the final analysis, what makes any NREGA social audit worth all the pain and effort is the awareness it creates among poor beneficiaries. It is a measure of the hard labour that awaits NREGA activists in other States that a social audit conducted under blazing arc lights, and with so much official support, such as the one in Bhilwara in Rajasthan, could run into so many roadblocks. Virtually all...

You may soon find India’s first genetically modified vegetable, Bt brinjal, making its way to your vegetable market. The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, which is responsible for approval of proposals relating to release of genetically engineered products, on Wednesday approved the environmental release of the vegetable but it still has to get a nod from the central government. Many in India are concerned over the harmful effects of the vegetable...

Development literature is now increasingly talking about rights-based development built on the appeal of the right-rhetoric when every government professes its commitment to realising human rights. Human rights are norms that bind a society and governments derive their legitimacy from fulfilling them. The source of these rights is many — natural rights, divine rights, inherent rights of human beings or self-evidence. The American Declaration of Independence of 1776 considered these...

Concerted efforts have been made to give a new lease of life to the Doha Round of WTO negotiations. The question before us is: what is the most relevant role which this revived round of trade talks can play? If we take an overview of the entire international trade scene and the changes that have taken place ever since the WTO was created (including the negotiations which preceded the WTO’s...

In Maharashtra, where issues hurl themselves at you, the Opposition failed to mount a strong campaign on a single one of them. The front rows of the Mumbai-Nagpur flight are usually the province of the political class: MLAs to MPs, ministers and fixers. This time, though, quite a few of the occupants were celebrities: television and film stars, major and minor, middling and mediocre. It wasn’t the T-20 cricket match in...