-The Times of India NEW DELHI: As the Centre stitches together its plan to roll out the direct benefit transfer (DBT) scheme, BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh seems all set to achieve full coverage of some benefits through the scheme. The DBT scheme has been touted as a game-changer for the ruling Congress party in the lead-up to the general elections in 2014. Ironically, a BJP-ruled state seems to have taken the lead to...
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Vanishing poverty trick
-The Hindu In figures officially released this week, the Planning Commission claims that poverty incidence had declined from 37.2 per cent of the population in 2004-05 to 21.9 per cent in 2011-12. This 15.3 percentage points decline over a seven-year period amounts to an unprecedented annual decline of 2.2 percentage points in the poverty rate. If that trend is sustained, it would lead to an end to "official" poverty in India...
More »Of politicians and some verdicts -N Gopalaswami
-The Hindu Court rulings on freebies, elections and caste-based rallies, and the CIC order on political parties are a beginning towards cleansing politics but whether they can achieve the desired result is debatable The slew of judgments from the higher judiciary in the period of just about a month or so has been like manna from heaven on the parched earth of electoral reforms. First, the Supreme Court frowned upon freebies, which...
More »Govt plans RTI shield for political parties
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre intends to exempt political parties from RTI scrutiny on the ground that they are not "substantially funded" by the government and so are not required to reveal details such donors and other funding sources. The government expects to consult political parties to firm up a consensus on undoing the Central Information Commission order putting parties under the ambit of the Right to Information Act...
More »Citizens write to parliamentarians to oppose RTI amendments -Himanshi Dhawan
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Eminent citizens including former Delhi high court chief justice A P Shah, former cabinet secretary TRS Subramanian and former information commissioner Shailesh Gandhi have urged parliamentarians not to sign amendments to the RTI act when it is tabled. The government plans to bring amendments to the act to exclude political parties. The letter says that the RTI act has been used to uncover "certain arbitrariness and...
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