The social audit of schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act (MGNREGA) now permits the involvement of outsiders in the process as facilitators. A new set of rules framed by the ministry of rural development for such audits has been approved. CHRIstened Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Audits of Schemes Rules 2011, the rules ensure the audit process is independent of agencies implementing the scheme and the...

The National Advisory Council today won a victory over the government with Sonia Gandhi stressing the inclusion of eight “highly vulnerable” groups among the priority beneficiaries of the food security bill. Sources said the rural development ministry, headed by Vilasrao Deshmukh, had been resisting the panel’s recommendation for a new category of households that are “highly vulnerable to food insecurity”. The eight groups identified by Sonia are: “Particularly vulnerable” tribal groups; Mahadalits; Households headed by...

Budget 2011-12 and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. THREE decades ago, in the early years of the Special Component Plan (SCP) for Scheduled Castes – very recently renamed inappropriately as Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan (SCSP) – Indira Gandhi on her return as Prime Minister wrote two historical D.O. letters dated March 12, 1980, one to Central Ministers and the other to State Chief Ministers, regarding the SCP in the Central...

THE Tamil Nadu government introduced with much fanfare the samathuva mayanam (common graveyard) concept during the previous Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam regime with the proclaimed goal of ending all caste-based discrimination at burial-cum-cremation grounds. An official announcement was made that panchayats which set up samathuva mayanams would get an “incentive grant” of Rs.1 lakh for promoting communal harmony. A few panchayats had received the incentive when the government appeared to beat a hasty...

Why are the erstwhile RTI campaigners so alarmed five years after it became law? Why so many dharnas, rallies, conventions and hunger-strikes all over again? Part of the reason is that the silent revolution that the RTI has spawned needs to be defended from surreptitious alterations and manipulations, and partly because the RTI activists are being threatened, harassed and assaulted by the corrupt and the powerful, often with the connivance...