The Adivasi Adhikar Rashtriya Manch (AARM) has urged Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to ensure that the allocation for the Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) in this year’s budget is increased to 8.4 per cent, in keeping with the strength of the tribals in the country. They stressed that the shortfall on this account was over Rs 27,000 crores in the last two years. Members of the AARM, which works among tribal...

If the Unique Identity project is such a good thing why is the man heading it unable to answer simple questions about it? Since the publication of his doorstopper of a book Imagining India in 2009, Nandan Nilekani has done a superb job of reinventing himself. The former head of software giant Infosys Technologies was overnight cast in the role of a visionary with his unabashedly free market prescription to turn...

It's the land of freedom, of bright lights and burgers, where daring entrepreneurs arrive from across the planet in search of fame and fortune. The United States of America - the world's melting pot - has been a symbol of hope for centuries, but behind this vision of wealth and wonder is a tale often untold. Food security, lack of water rights and unemployment might sound like the type of problems...

The incarceration of Binayak Sen reminded me of the sophist philosopher Thrasymachus's definition of justice in Plato's Republic. Challenged by Socrates to define justice he says: "I proclaim that might is right, and justice is in the interest of the stronger...The different forms of government make laws, democratic, aristocratic, or autocratic, with a view to their respective interests; and these laws, so made by them to serve their interests, they...

NGOs To No Go’s     * NGOs have mushroomed; so have instances of misappropriation of funds     * Not disclosing expenditure and receipts; nor revealing who funds them     * Not setting up NGO for the task it was funded for     * Flocking to 'hot' topics, inviting accusations of singing to industrialists’ tunes     * For every NGO supporting a cause, another springs up against that cause *** NGO numbers     * 3.3 million Number of NGOs...