-The Indian Express   Two months after the Supreme Court issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government to respond to alleged anomalies in MGNREGS pointed out in the survey report of the Centre for Environment and Food Security (CEFS), the state government has formed special teams to investigate the complaints in five districts of Bundelkhand. Five teams have been formed to do spot verification of the anomalies pointed out in the report,...

Ruth Manorama started her work with the urban poor in her youth; there has been no turning back ever since. She is the powerful voice of dalit women today. Is it easy being a dalit in India? And a woman at that? Have things changed for the better for the dalits who constitute roughly 16.23 per cent of our population, since the Constitution of India “cast a special responsibility on the...

Over the last few decades thenon-party volunteer organisations have been much more effective in Indian public space and more articulate in policy debates than the traditional Left parties. This essay, while recognising the manifold achievements of these organisations, reflects on the serious limitations of the activities of the voluntary sector and argues that when they usurp certain roles they can become a threat to representative democracy. [Pranab Bardhan (bardhan@econ.berkeley.edu) is at...

-PTI   Alleging that he was denied food along with others at an official meeting due to "caste discrimination", the ruling BJD MLA Kashinath Mallik today sought intervention of Orissa assembly speaker. Mallik, who represented Daspall in the assembly, met the speaker Pradip Kumar Amat and drew his attention towards the alleged discrimination. "While three other MLAs of Nayagarh district and Kandhamal MP were served food at a room with dignity,...

The draft Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill 2011, proposed by the NAC, has attracted welcome debate. Any legislative measure, intended to correct a historical wrong, should indeed be subject to the closest scrutiny to improve and strengthen it. For if we get this right it can help realise, far better than we have so far, the constitutional guarantees of equality before the law. This bill is built on India’s...