A LEAFY VILLAGE in Kerala, Pathanpara, never found access to India’s electricity grid. That is why for the last several years, this village has been generating its own electricity. Raju, a dhoti-clad cashew nut farmer, operates Pathanpara’s five kilowatt (KW) micro hydropower plant. He lives in the village and earns a salary of Rs 2,250, paid by the People’s Electricity Committee (PEC). The power generated is shared equally by the village,...
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Make public expenses of PM's relatives on foreign tours: CIC
The Prime Minister's Office has been directed by the Central Information Commission (CIC) to provide details of the expenditure incurred on the PM's relatives accompanying him on visits abroad. The CIC rejected the PMO's argument that it did not have such records. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the Protocol Division of the External Affairs Ministry have both stated they do no have these records with an RTI application shuttling between the...
More »Everybody loves to fight poverty by Puja Mehra
It is not often that a social security programme the size of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS - New Delhi has spent Rs 40,000 crore on it in 2010/11 alone - faces an existential moment. But, April 2011 will present one such crossroad: the end of the term of a bureaucrat widely acknowledged as the prime mover behind the five-year old scheme. Brought in six years ago to the Centre from her parent...
More »Dr Arvind Virmani, Affiliate Professor (& Distinguished Senior Fellow), George Mason University (School of Public Policy-CEMP), and Executive Director, IMF interviewed by TCA Srinivasa-Raghavan
Given a positive regulatory environment, banks and other financial intermediaries will certainly be interested in using the smart card opportunity. Dr Arvind Virmani, with a Ph.D. from Harvard and 30 years of professional experience, is one of the most valued economists in the Government. Before he retired as Chief Economic Advisor in 2009, he had served in the Finance Ministry and the Planning Commission. A researcher par excellence, his research papers...
More »Not out of the woods yet by Ashish Kothari
The promise of the FRA remains largely unfulfilled, says a committee set up by the Ministries of Environment and Forests and Tribal Affairs. IT seems hard for a government used to controlling most of India's common lands to let go of them. Even though it has passed a law mandating more decentralised governance of forests, the government itself is proving to be the biggest obstacle in its implementation. Other than in...
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