-CaravanMagazine.in The economist Jean Drèze’s book, Sense and Solidarity, published in late 2017, deals with the impact of Aadhaar on social-welfare programmes, such as the National Food Security Act and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, among other things. Drèze was a member of the United Progressive Alliance government’s advisory council, which designed the NFSA and MGNREGS. He co-authored some of the essays in this book with colleagues and...

  One of the salient features of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (2005) is that there are provisions in it to ensure transparency and accountability. Section 17(2) of the MGNREGA says that the gram sabha shall conduct regular social audits of all the projects under the scheme taken up within the gram panchayat (GP). In addition to that, Section 17(3) of the MGNREGA states that the GP shall make...

-TheWire.in A report points at how a large number of Muslims feel they are implicated in terrorism cases, Dalits for petty crimes, and Adivasis for being Maoists. Muslim representation in the police force remains abysmally low whereas the community continues to have a disproportionately high representation in prisons, a report brought out by Common Cause and the Lokniti-Programme for Comparative Democracy at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) has...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A five-judge Supreme Court constitution bench on Wednesday ruled that parliamentary standing committee reports can be examined by courts for evidence evaluation, rejecting the Centre's argument that it would be a breach of parliamentary privileges and an encroachment into the domain of the legislature. The apex court, however, said "admissibility of a parliamentary committee report in evidence does not mean facts stated in the report stand proved", as...

-Newsclick.in Despite providing capital for an economically and socially disastrous project, World Bank’s International Financial Corporation has claimed immunity from legal action. A fishing community in Kutch, Gujarat, has moved several courts in the United States seeking damages from the International Financial Corporation (IFC). The IFC is the private investment lending arm of the World Bank Group, and is hiding from legal action behind an immunity law. The claims were dismissed by the...