-Press Note from NREGA Sangharsh Morcha Since the start of the FY 18, we have pointed out the willful misrepresentation of delays in wage payments, incomplete calculation of the full extent of compensation due to workers and the under provisioning of budgets for the program. In August, we released a report by independent researchers, that used the Ministry of Rural Development’s own data to show how the Central Government is deliberately...

-Frontline.in The Assembly elections have put under intense scrutiny Narendra Modi’s Gujarat model of development which is touted as worthy of replication throughout the country. Audit reports of the CAG provide ample evidence of it being inefficient, corrupt and not beneficial to the common people. THE standard indicators of development, as is understood in theory and practice, comprise a range of indices, and not necessarily the level of private investment in...

-Scroll.in Aadhaar is depriving the most vulnerable people of their grain entitlements. Eleven-year-old Santoshi Kumari died asking for rice on September 28, eight months after her family stopped getting food rations from the government because their ration card was not linked to their Aadhaar, the biometrics-based 12-digit unique identification number that the Centre wants all Indian residents to have. The child’s death in Jharkhand’s Simdega district has elicited official responses that verge...

-The Indian Express As incidents of violence against Dalits mount in Gujarat, it is worth recalling the India of Ambedkar’s dreams The steps, if any, initiated by the government through a special session of the Lok Sabha on atrocities after the Una incident last year, have not had an impact on the violence against Dalits in Gujarat. On the contrary, there has been an increase of incidents which the Supreme Court had...

-Hindustan Times The judgment in Puttaswamy takes privacy far beyond the confines of Article 21 and weaves it into other fundamental rights such as the freedom of conscience, the freedom of assembly and the freedom of occupation. Fundamental rights were once described by the Supreme Court as “empty vessels into which each generation must pour its content in light of its experience” (PUCL v Union of India (2003) 4 SCC 399). Close to...