At least 10 RTI applicants have been killed over the past two years, with many others facing threats in their bid to expose corruption On a Republic Day when India celebrated 61 years of justice, equality and liberty, Amar Nath Pandey says he encountered the darkest moment of his life. In late evening on 26 January, a lone assailant leaped from the folds of darkness in the street outside his house in...

The Union Ministry for Rural Development has set up a committee to consider afresh the suggestions made by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) to strengthen the process of social auditing of expenditure under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) and check corrupt practices. “Old game” Civil society leaders charge that the Ministry and the bureaucracy are at their old game of endlessly delaying the process by...

Regulation in India's microfinance sector aims to address feckless borrowing and reckless lending – but will the new restrictions entrench poverty, rather than end it? One of the many crushing burdens for India's poor bear is debt; unable to make ends meet, they turn to traditional moneylenders. They are willing to extend credit, but at unconscionably high rates – sometimes exceeding 80%, and keeping borrowers in lifelong penury. Popular cinema and...

On the fifth birth anniversary of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) last Wednesday, UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi admitted discrepancies in the biggest job guarantee scheme in the world. Gandhi, who is also National Advisory Council (NAC) chief, was referring to fake job cards, forged muster rolls and funds swindled by village heads, officials, etc. She was quick to pinpoint the course correction — a strengthened social audit....

The late Rajiv Gandhi famously, or infamously, once claimed that only 15 per cent of the funds allocated to welfare programmes ever reached the intended beneficiaries. The rest leaked enroute, entering the pockets of an assortment of intermediaries. This is a thought that the Union finance minister must always remember, especially when he sits down to allocate funds for an assortment of subsidies and some of the high-profile spending programme...