I recently wrote in this column about two cases where individual efforts to fight corruption and inefficient system brought results. Alas, it is fraught with difficulties and sometimes danger. Manjulaben Vaghela lives in Pardhol village in Dascroi taluka. She for past four years has been trying to get an electricity connection for her chhapra. Starting with the GEB, she has appealed to everyone concerned including the CM's secretariat. This has caused her...

What better elixir than pure water? Thanks to Naandi, a safe drinking water programme, 3,90,536 households in rural areas across four Indian states are benefited.  Naandi, headquartered in Hyderabad, is a not-for-profit organization which works with governing bodies in rural areas, including Karnataka, to provide clean drinking water to the poor. So what really is their modus operandi? It is essentially a community-run programme where the local governing body or gram...

The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) of the Maharashtra Police has sought the Bombay High Court’s intervention and redressal in the case of a special judge in Kolhapur who has ordered acquittals in 41 of the 45 cases she has presided over since 2007.   The ACB is not in agreement with 31 of those 41 acquittals and has already challenged 27 of them. It has also urged the high court to probe the...

Seven months after the National Integration Council (NIC) meeting in September “discussed and dumped” the National Advisory Council (NAC)-drafted ‘Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence (Access to Justice and Reparation) Bill, civil society activists from across the country representing more than 50 organisations came together to pronounce the Bill as “dead.” They also demanded that the Union government come up with a new draft of the Bill focused on “making public...

Job card holders say they did not get wages   Residents of villages in Seege Gram Panchayat in Hassan taluk alleged at a social audit meet here on Saturday that there were irregularities in the implementation of schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The Bangalore-based Association for Social Transparency, Rights and Action (ASTRA), a non-governmental organisation, conducted the audit, and employees from the Department of Rural Development and Panchayat...