Back in May 2010, sixty Dalits, who had worked their entire lives as manual scavengers, burned the baskets they used for collecting human excreta outside the District Collector's office here. They had just been employed as sweepers by the local administration under a rehabilitation scheme. Five months later, all of them are without work, having been suspended, astonishingly, for not working hard enough. “It took us a lot of courage to...
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As POSCO hits green roadblocks, the mega project seems doomed by Saroj Mishra
As POSCO hits green roadblocks, the mega project seems doomed THE ODISHA government is trying hard not to sound defensive, after the Meena Gupta Committee report pulled it up for violating the local people’s forest rights while giving the nod to POSCO for setting up its proposed $12 billion steel plant. Earlier, a joint committee of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) had reached the same conclusion, and reported several...
More »Arvind Kejriwal, 2006 Ramon Magsaysay award winner and founder of Parivartan interviewed by Pallavi Singh
How would you rate the functioning of the RTI Act five years into its enactment? It has been a mixed experience. It is encouraging that we have one of the best laws in the world but its shoddy implementation is taking the sheen away. The two nerve centers of RTI are simplifying the process of filing an application and making the functioning of the Commission effective. The posts of Information Commissioner...
More »Jethwa murder may haunt BJP in Kodinar by Vijaysinh Parmar
The slain RTI and wildlife activist, Amit Jethwa, who paid the price for trying to expose illegal mining around the Gir Sanctuary with his life, has become an inspiration for the local RTI activists in Kodinar taluka. Cashing in on the popular sentiment, Congress has named two RTI activists to contest Kodinar taluka panchayat polls to be held on October 21. Jethwa was murdered outside Gujarat High Court two months ago....
More »‘Puppy’ bite in NAC food jab at Pawar by Radhika Ramaseshan
Take a lesson from Commonwealth Games mascot Shera and “leap ahead” instead of whimpering like a “timorous puppy”, a food rights campaigner has said in a sharp attack on Sharad Pawar. The criticism in a Delhi newspaper has come from Belgium-born Jean Dreze, a prominent member of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council. He is ostensibly riled by reports that Pawar’s food ministry has rejected two of the council’s key proposals...
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