After Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan declared 2012 as the year of family planning, some district collectors seem to have tossed the rule book to the winds to meet their targets. Such has been the zeal among the officials to bring more and more people under the scalpel that they are luring and misguiding protected tribals with dwindling population into sterilization. From aanganwadi workers to tehsildars and village 'patwaris',...

After Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan declared 2012 as the year of family planning, some district collectors seem to have tossed the rule book to the winds to meet their targets. Such has been the zeal among the officials to bring more and more people under the scalpel that they are luring and misguiding protected tribals with dwindling population into sterilization. From aanganwadi workers to tehsildars and village 'patwaris', everyone...

If India is an aspiring society, education is perhaps the quickest vehicle of social mobility. Right to Education (RTE) is a supplyside intervention by the government that will make education cheaper and, in the process, every child will get a chance to be educated. But an approach that focuses on availability of schools, getting children to the classroom and getting them taught by reasonably well-trained teachers is not enough. Retention...

The new draft National Water Policy (NWP) circulated by the Ministry of Water Resources to water experts suggests that the government is poised to withdraw from its responsibilities of water service delivery, and that multinational corporations and financial institutions might have too big a say in water allocation and policy. At first glance, it appears as if the policy takes a holistic approach to water resources management, with a clear recognition...

The irrationality and waste in energy subsidies in India has been a perennial theme in analysis of the Indian economy and in reform prescriptions. Progress has, however, turned out to be elusive in the face of ground realities and feasible politics.  The power ministry, after struggling for over a decade through repeated exhortations, had the satisfaction of getting a resolution in a Chief Ministers Conference in 2001 that free supply of...