Using India’s populist Right to Information process gives citizens about as good a chance of receiving basic services as paying a bribe does, providing a new, and surprising weapon in the war against corruption. Two doctoral candidates in political science at Yale University recruited slum dwellers in Delhi and asked them to apply for a “ration card,” which allows people living below the poverty line to buy food at subsidized prices....
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Food crisis? We've enough on our plates by Tim Lang
Yes, food prices are rising but more competition is not the answer — it's time to stop over-consumption. Slowly, surely, a new mixture of consensus and fault lines is emerging about world food. On the one hand, there is agreement we are entering a new era in which basic agricultural commodity prices are rising after decades of falling. This will hit the poorest hardest, as an Oxfam report this week on...
More »India land disputes pit farmers against middle class by Shilpa Kannan
In the first of a series of reports on land rights, we look at the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, where there have been violent clashes between local villagers and police in a dispute over land. It's a hot summer day and the air is thick with smoke from the diesel-powered trucks carrying bricks, cement and sand. There is a long line of vehicles along the road as the trucks jostle...
More »Land and the sovereign's responsibility by Vinayak Chatterjee
Exasperated with the public perception of its role, the Indian government appears keen to somehow abdicate its key sovereign function of making land available for economic development by dumping it on the private sector. This is wrong. The maintenance of up-to-date land records, the scientific identification of tracts for a shift from agricultural to non-agricultural uses and the smooth transfer of land assets are the functions of the sovereign. The...
More »For drafting an ideal Lokpal Bill by Arun Kumar
The success of the institution of Lokpal will depend on limiting its scope to the very top of the hierarchy. That will make it manageable and lead to accountability down the line. The drafting of the Lokpal bill is back in the news after the round of Assembly elections. The co-chairperson of the high-power committee involved in the drafting has said that progress is slow and that the June 30 deadline...
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