A full decade ago, Chandrababu Naidu made a point about the quick issuance of driving licences, and easy digital access to land records and house tax calculations — which he showcased to Bill Clinton when the then US president came visiting. Since then, all of Karnataka has digitised its land records through the Bhoomi project that now has a database on 20 million land holdings. Other states have similar projects....

The Copenhagen summit on global warming and climate change has commenced. Instead of a leadership role, we will now be playing a followers’ role. We fell behind the emerging consensus curve. We held on for too long to outmoded positions of merely harping on per capita emission and common-differentiated obligation while disregarding many other significant factors. The recent decision of China, announcing a 40 per cent cut in its energy...

In a year of sparse rains and spiralling food prices, with hundreds of districts being officially declared as drought-hit, a rally by activists in the capital demands a Food Entitlements Act.  Perhaps the most vocal demands at the rally were those aimed at a complete revamp of the Public Distribution System (PDS), starting with universal — instead of targeted — coverage. Over 5,000 grassroots activists, agricultural workers, farmers, lawyers, doctors and...

Is drought being used as an excuse to delay the national Food Security Act? An informal network of organizations and individuals involved in the Right to Food Campaign believe so. The campaign groups are demanding that a national consultative process on an improved draft bill must be started immediately so that the proposed Food Security Act could be passed as soon as possible. The campaigners also demand that exports of...

THE ongoing negotiations with the World Bank provide an opportunity to urban policymakers to reinvent the present form of JNNURM (called v1.0). Thus far JNNURM v1.0 has focused on upgrading macro-level dimensions of city’s environment, ignoring the social and economic diversity (e.g., mixed uses and building types) prevailing in urban areas. The top-down urban ‘renewal’ model underlying the present version of JNNURM is largely founded on the planning practices of...