Funding agency for rural NGOs may be on its last legs IT IS a government agency that was set up specially to fund non-profits working on rural development. But of late the Council for People’s Action and Advancement of Rural Technology (CAPART) has been plagued by allegations of corruption and inefficiency. After a few failed attempts to reform CAPART, the government has now decided to overhaul the agency which has close...
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No Guarantee of Food Security in Children’s Incredible India by Razia Ismail
India’s decision-makers seem to find it difficult to see that there are children in the country. Being unable to see them, they are unable to perceive that they are hungry. In an age when we are able to use euphemisms like ‘under-nutrition’, this is perhaps not surprising. But it is disgraceful none the less. This country has a large population of children. Fortyone per cent of its total numbers. The national...
More »Turning off the tap on water as a human right by Shiney Varghese
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...
More »Long on Aspiration, Short on Detail by Sujatha Rao
The recommendations of the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Access to Universal Healthcare are significant because they make explicit the need to contextualise health within the rights. However, the problem with the report is that it does not ask why many of the same recommendations that were made by previous committees have not been implemented. The HLEG neither recognises the problems, constraints and compulsions at the national, state...
More »Education experts pitch for major changes in RTE Act by Rashmi R Parida
The goals of the Right to Education (RTE) Act are unrealistic and unachievable in its entirety education experts and policymakers said at a conference here today, and endorsed the need for more dialogues with civil society, government agencies and educational service providers to bring the landmark legislation to fruition. There is an imperative need to look afresh into the RTE Act, iron out its ambiguities and...
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