The Union Rural Development Ministry appears to have painted itself into a corner on the issue of paying minimum wages to workers employed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS). The ministry has so far insisted that it is not obliged to pay minimum wages to MNREGS workers. This despite an Andhra Pradesh High Court order requiring the government to pay them statutory minimum wages. In a further...

DALIT THEOLOGY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY — Discordant Voices, Discerning Pathways: Edited by Sathianathan Clarke, Deenbandhu Manchala, Philip Vinod Peacock; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 745. Although Christian missionaries of various denominations have been active in India for several centuries, the 1941 Census placed the number of Christians in colonial India at just 1.6 per cent of the population. This clearly indicates that the...

The Union Minister of State for Communications & IT, Shri Sachin Pilot has said today that nationwide random testing of radiations emitted by mobile towers will commence from November 16, 2010 onwards by the Telecom Engineering and Resource Monitoring (TERM) Cells. The progress in this regard and compliance levels will be monitored centrally, and non-compliance will result in fines and penalties envisaged in existing guidelines and amended license conditions, including...

The RTI website of the State has been awarded as the best user-friendly website in the Country. A high profile event for choosing best website in the country conducted by India eGov 2.0 in New Delhi on October 28 choose States RTI Central Mechanism (RTI CMM) as the best user-friendly website and conferred India eGov 2.0 Awards-2010. The States RTI website is now connecting as many as 1800 offices and providing...

Vedanta, Posco and Sindhudurg. The issue is the same — the need for a well-thought-out policy relating to extractive and resource-based industry. The government’s withdrawal of mining permission to Vedanta on the Niyamgiri hills in Orissa’s backward Kalahandi district; the divided verdict by the Gupta Committee on the Posco iron ore project; and the environment ministry’s concern on 49 mining licences issued by the Maharashtra government for bauxite and iron...