REWA: Having struggled for the past five years for their land, mine workers of Khara village in Madhya Pradesh still do not know what they are fighting against—a feudal social system, a corrupt Forest Department, or their own fate? Khara village is a typical example of how feudal forces with tacit approval from the local administration still call the shots in most of rural India.Three years of drought and a barren,...

In one of the biggest mobilisations of its kind in the case of any government programme in the country so far, some 1,700 persons are at present carrying out a unique social audit of the implementation of the UPA Government’s much talked about Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in Bhilwara, the constituency of Union Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister C. P. Joshi in Rajasthan. Right to Information activists...

The recession is a promising moment to expand NREGA with greater emphasis on building social capital in a big way.  Soon after assuming office, the first UPA government took an impressive step for the alleviation of rural poverty by launching the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It was, indeed, a wise move to insulate the programme from the vicissitudes of electoral politics by enacting the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act...

The film industry is tackling the controversial issue of farmer suicides After drinking pesticide out of sheer desperation, poverty-stricken farmer Nandu collapsed. He did this on screen in front of an audience at a packed multiplex cinema, which issued a collective gasp. Nandu is just a character in a recent Indian film about farmer suicides. But his tragic fate has been a reality for thousands of farmers across India. For the first...

RTI advocators in Bihar have succeeded in prevailing upon the State Information Commission to impose penalties under The Right to Information Act (RTI Act) on two senior officers of the Madhubani  district administration. On 11th September, 2009 the Bihar Information Commission imposed the maximum penalty permissible under the RTI Act on the Additional District Collector (Apar-Samaharta) and the Circle Officer (Anchal Adhikari) for repeated contraventions of the RTI Act. The Commission...