-Tribune News Service Notwithstanding the marginal decline in spendings under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) over the past two years, Himachal has the best performance indicators, putting it in the league of top-performing states. The total expenditure under the scheme came down from Rs 556.55 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 516.34 crore in 2010-11 and further fell to Rs 509.43 crore in the last financial year. However, the number...

-The Telegraph   The New York Times has reported that Wal-Mart, the US-based retail giant, hushed up an internal investigation sometime after the company was told of a bribery campaign to obtain licences and facilitate rapid expansion in Mexico. Some of the alleged instances of bribery are certain to ring a bell in India where it is not too difficult to bend rules for a price. The New York Times said its “examination...

I recently wrote in this column about two cases where individual efforts to fight corruption and inefficient system brought results. Alas, it is fraught with difficulties and sometimes danger. Manjulaben Vaghela lives in Pardhol village in Dascroi taluka. She for past four years has been trying to get an electricity connection for her chhapra. Starting with the GEB, she has appealed to everyone concerned including the CM's secretariat. This has caused her...

Job card holders say they did not get wages   Residents of villages in Seege Gram Panchayat in Hassan taluk alleged at a social audit meet here on Saturday that there were irregularities in the implementation of schemes under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. The Bangalore-based Association for Social Transparency, Rights and Action (ASTRA), a non-governmental organisation, conducted the audit, and employees from the Department of Rural Development and Panchayat...

Arundhati has got it all wrong—the facts speak out against her romantic notions of the tribals’ fight Nirad C. Chaudhary wrote in The Continent of Circe that India’s tribals were mainly found in hill forests. This was because, he reasoned, they had been chased there by the invading Aryans, who displaced them from their river plains. In an essay published in this magazine (Capitalism: A Ghost Story, March 26), Arundhati Roy...