The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (2005) differs from the other poverty alleviation measures in two significant respects. Where most welfare programmes cast the state in the role of benefactor offering handouts to the poor, the NREGS is built around notions of citizenship and entitlement. Secondly, the NREGS also facilitates disclosure by means of regular social audits. These audits, mandated to be done by the Gram Sabhas, are intended to...

The language of rights has come into increasing use in India in public debate in the course of the last couple of decades. In this process, the word ‘right’ has acquired a more capacious and flexible meaning than is ordinarily given to it by the Constitution and the law. It is becoming more a matter of politics than of law, an instrument of political combat more than legal adjudication. If...

The minister for human resource development, Kapil Sibal, is a man in a hurry. His haste would be welcome, if the government’s proposals for higher education were not so scandalous. Amazingly, despite a few distinguished voices of dissent, there has been no national debate on the United Progressive Alliance government’s plans. Existing state and Central universities, likely to be worst affected by the broom of change, seem reconciled to their...

With less than two months to go until the big-ticket UN climate change conference in Copenhagen from 7-18 December, are cracks appearing in the tough-as-nails approach that has characterised Indian officialdom? A leading Indian newspaper reported on Monday that Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, suggesting that Delhi should accept a deviation from the 1997 Kyoto protocol on climate change which puts the onus squarely...

The trade union leaders say workers will not stop work, but will attend the demonstrations before or after their shifts Millions of workers will be on the streets across India on Wednesday, picketing and holding rallies to protest rising prices and job losses, officials said, though there may be little impact on production. Four major trade unions, including those affiliated with the ruling Congress party and those with the opposition...