The Centre is set to make it compulsory that 4% of its annual purchases be made from the units run by dalits and tribals, in what will be its strongest bait for classes which hold the key to political battles at the Centre and states. The 4% purchase quota proposal from ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) is part of the policy that 20% of government procurement be...
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Hazare vs Hazare: A Scenario as a Warning by Shiv Visvanathan
As the Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption movement moves to the legislative phase it has to rid itself of the panacea model. The Hazare group has to realise that it has no monopoly on diagnosis or the cure for corruption. The Lokpal is no magic bullet which will solve the problem of corruption. Corruption needs a more cautious and nuanced problematic and a wider set of solutions. To put it facetiously, Hazare’s...
More »The Topiwala Camera by Anil Dharker
In covering Anna, TV seems to have shed its critical faculties “Corruption,” I remarked the other day on a television channel, “takes more than one form.” We were talking about—what else?—the latest incremental progression in the Anna Hazare saga. “Everyone talks of money corruption, but what about the other kind—‘Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely’? And who has any kind of power now? Only two entities: Anna Hazare and television.” That’s...
More »Information Martyr by Chandrani Banerjee
Shehla Masood had to die because the state couldn’t protect her Shehla Masood’s worst fears came to pass on August 16: she was shot dead in front of her house in Bhopal at around 11 am. An RTI activist who had taken up a variety of issues, from good governance, transparency and police reforms to tiger conservation, and who had been collecting evidence using the RTI Act since 2005, she...
More »Uniform & equitable by S Dorairaj
The Supreme Court directs the Tamil Nadu government to implement the uniform system of school education immediately. “Children are not only the future citizens but also the future of the earth. Elders in general, and parents and teachers in particular, owe a responsibility for taking care of the well-being and welfare of the children. The world shall be a better or worse place to live according to how we treat...
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