-Press Release from Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms The recent joint conference of Chief Ministers and Chief Justices of High Courts and the Supreme Court of India, concluded with an anguished appeal from the Chief Justice of India for far greater government participation in ensuring urgent judicial reforms, especially in addressing the vast shortage of judges. The Chief Justice of India’s speech also revealed that the efficient functioning of the...

-Livemint.com/ Bloomberg Corruption being rife though, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act has boosted agricultural wages and rural-labour market Over the last 10 years in India, perhaps no other law has sparked such sustained debate as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), universally known as ‘Narega.’ Passed by the previous Congress government in February 2006 and upheld by the Narendra Modi administration, it’s given rise to the...

-The Hindu The GARV app puts pressure on State governments for timely and quality delivery “I am going to turn everything into an app and I am going to allow people to monitor daily what work we are doing, what work States are doing” — Piyush Goyal, March 23, 2016 at the Power Focus Summit Rural electrification has been an enduring challenge for successive governments. Given India’s federal structure, States provide last-mile connectivity...

-The Hindu Business Line Ten years on, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act endures because it provides the poor a political voice February 2016 marks a decade since India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 (NREGA) came into force. NREGA is both revolutionary and modest; it promises every rural household one hundred days of employment annually on public-works projects, but the labour is taxing and pays minimum wage, at best. Many charges have...

-Down to Earth The country’s performance in terms of Public Participation and budget oversight by the legislature was rated “weak” in the survey As Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley gears up to present the Union Budget 2016-17 (April-March), it is worth noting that an international survey of budgets of over a 100 countries points out that India provides “limited” budget information in the public domain. The Open Budget Survey 2015, released by the...