After easing a bit in the previous week, food inflation was back to near-20% levels in the third week of December as items such as potatoes and pulses continued to belie hopes of sustained relief over prices of essential commodities. The wholesale price-based index of food articles rose by 1.18% for the week ended December 19 from 18.65% a week ago. One week before that, food inflation had stood at...

It was a night out under the stars. These were not city slickers but a group of villagers from Salona. On the way down from Chikhaldhara hill station in Amravati district, the darkness of the cold night is lit by small fires. Groups of people huddle around the flickering flames. Their children lie swaddled in thin bedclothes which cannot keep the chill away. Shivlal Belsare and his wife are finishing off...

When a problem is big and tends to profit a powerful group, there’s a time-honoured temptation to sweep it under the rug by assuming it’s natural and inevitable. This was true of slavery until the abolitionist movement of the 19th century, and of colonialism until the contagion of independence movements in the 20th century. Now these same forces are at work in attitudes toward the global and national realities of...

Food prices have hit a 10-year-high as supply shortages due to poor monsoon and floods in some parts finally bit hard, forcing a worried government to announce a step-up in imports and strengthening expectations of RBI tightening policy to stop a breakout of inflation in the wider economy. Prices of potato, other vegetables and pulses drove inflation to 19.95% in the year to December 5, surging from 19% in the...

Missing job cards, fudged muster rolls and diversion of NREGS funds through fake bills. What the Rajasthan social audit has revealed is the tip of the iceberg.  Bhilwara-2009 invited a swift and strong backlash — the government backed off realising it had stepped into a quagmire of corruption The battle being fought in the panchayats, streets, offices, and courts of Rajasthan is not just about social audit To understand why civil society...