Nothing illustrates the threat that the FIR raj poses to personal liberty more starkly than the arbitrary manner in which two complaints in the cartoon case were pursued. One complaint was filed against Jadavpur University professor Ambikesh Mahapatra by a Trinamul supporter, accusing him of emailing “obscene” content about the chief minister. The second was lodged by Mahapatra, accusing four persons with Trinamul links of assaulting him. The strikingly divergent police response...
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Pronab Sen, principal advisor to Planning Commission interviewed by Indivjal Dhasmana
The poverty line figures given by the Planning Commission for 2009-10 have drawn strong criticism of foul play from politicians, social activists and some economists. Is the current poverty line justified? Why are there so many conflicting opinions? To understand this complex issue in simple terms,Indivjal Dhasmana interviewed Pronab Sen, principal advisor to the Planning Commission and former chief statistician. Edited excerpts: There is so much confusion around the poverty line....
More »Wage rate under MGNREGA revised-K Balchand
The Centre on Monday revised the wage rate under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and has decided to amend the Act to remove the existing disparity in minimum wage, even as the matter is scheduled to come up before the Supreme Court on April 9. The revision in the wage rate indexed to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labour (CPIAL) will come into effect on April 1...
More »Fewer poor, but still a long way to go-Asit Ranjan Mishra
India doubled the pace at which it has been reducing poverty in rural areas in the five years to 2009-10 by moving around 47 million over the so-called poverty line. Interestingly, the five years to 2009-10 also saw India grow the fastest in any five-year period in the past, at an average of 8.7%. In the same period, 5 million people in urban India moved above the poverty line. The numbers...
More »Once forbidden, always…by Pronab Mondal
Maoist leader Kishan is dead but he has left behind a “ghost village” that even the new Bengal government has been unable to breathe back to life. The story of Salpatra, a village of mostly Muslim families near Jhargram town, is not one of usual black-and-white administrative inaction but of how acts of unspeakable brutality and an element of political mistrust can keep empty an entire village not more than 150km...
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