-BBC A survey done earlier this year shows that public facilities in the poorest regions of India have steadily expanded, improving the lives of people there, writes development economist Jean Dreze. Once upon a time, not so long ago, public facilities in the poorest districts of India were few and far between. Most people were left to their own devices and they lived in the shadow of hunger, insecurity and exploitation, with no...
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Activists for special Parliament session to pass bills dealing with graft
-PTI NEW DELHI: A day after Rahul Gandhi made a strong pitch for more legislations to weed out Corruption, activists on Sunday demanded convening of a special session of Parliament to pass bills dealing with graft at the grass-roots level. "Just a Lokpal Bill is not enough. It is actually one part of many that have to come together. To our mind, the Grievance Redress Bill is 'Aam Aadmi Ka Lokpal'," said...
More »Maharashtra tops country in attacks, murder of RTI activists -Anahita Mukherji
-The Times of India MUMBAI: The murder of a young Right to Information activist from Bhiwandi was no aberration for a state that has seen the highest number of attacks on RTI activists since the Act's debut in 2005. Data gleaned by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) shows Maharashtra has seen 53 attacks on RTI activists, including nine cases of murder, over the last eight years. Gujarat comes second with 34...
More »A law to end targeted violence-Harsh Mander
-Live Mint India needs a law to check the menace of communal and caste violence. The arguments against it are spurious Among free India's gravest failures-along with its inability to end hunger, pervasive poverty and discrimination-is the continued targeting of people with violence and arson only because of their faith or caste. This periodic blood-letting, mass sexual assault and arson leaves a trail of great suffering of innocents, and repeated assaults...
More »A historic step forward
-The Business Standard Lok Pal important measure, but more needed In what should be seen as a victory for deliberative democracy, the Lok Sabha passed the Lok Pal and Lok Ayuktas Bill, 2013, on Wednesday with near-unanimity among political parties. Only the Samajwadi Party and the Shiv Sena objected in the end, and they chose to walk out rather than vote against the Bill or disrupt the House. The Rajya Sabha had...
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