After being mired in controversies across the nation over multi-crore scams, the MGNREGA scheme hasn’t quite made headway in Bulandshahr district’s Anupshahr yet, say Bhamati Sivapalan and Yamini Deenadayalan “MGNREGA is a flop in Uttar Pradesh,” extended NGO worker Manish Sharma, as small talk, at the block development office of Anupshahr in the Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh. Despite having been in force since 2005, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment...

Father Cedric Prakash is a human rights and peace activist based in Ahmedabad. He has campaigned for the justice of the victims of the 2002 communal violence on peril of being publicly branded as “non-Gujarati and non-Hindu” by chief minister Narendra Modi. A resident of Gujarat for nearly 40 years, Prakash is the founding director of Prashant, a centre for human rights, peace and justice. He was named Chevalier of the...

Two stories on two days, both from Delhi and both shocking in their revelations. Both involved child abuse. The first story was about a university professor on the run, allegedly after it came to light that he had employed a 10-year-old boy in his house, and worse, regularly beat him. The second story was even more mind-numbing in its details. Sanjana (name changed to protect identity), a 14-year-old girl, is...

They are the children of migrant labourers, security guards, maids and gardeners for whom access to formal education would have been a distant goal, had it not been for two women who started teaching them under a tree in Sector 56, two years ago. The twosome are effectively giving these underprivileged children their right to education without any fanfare. From a measly five-six students, their number has now grown to...

'Food subsidy is a massive burden…if so much is spent on subsidies, what is left for development?' agriculture minister Sharad Pawar recently asked. It is a legitimate question that is on the minds of many but seldom gets asked for fear of appearing callous. Are we prematurely trying to be a welfare State? In the developed world, safety nets like food stamps are regarded as humanitarian obligations toward the poor....