Recently an interesting article appeared in The New York Times on how after the completion of a social audit at Nagarkurnool in Andhra Pradesh, villagers punished a local official for swindling funds allocated to the central government's flagship project, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. The irate villagers tied the official's hands and paraded him around the neighbouring villages. This is not a one-off incident; similar accounts have...

A day labourer has complained to court that a panchayat pradhan in cahoots with a bank manager has thrust a loan of Rs 30,000 on him for which he had never applied, the allegation exposing how beneficiaries of village schemes are left at the mercy of influential rural leaders.Additional chief judicial magistrate Manoj Rai, after criticising the police role in the investigation, asked the Islampur subdivisional officer yesterday to inquire...

The Assange saga may be as good for the jurisprudence of rape as the whole WikiLeaks issue may be for the strength of free speech and the Internet.Julian Paul Assange's life as a hacker and “rogue journalist” (as he is to some people) had the makings of a classic Hollywood potboiler, initially. Eventually, it appeared to have turned into high drama, with two women alleging rape and molestation, a Swedish...

The United Nations health agency is set to develop the first-ever global information standards for traditional medicine, which is a primary source of health care for many people in parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America and is increasingly being used in Europe and North America. The International Classification of Traditional Medicine project will assist in creating an evidence base for traditional medicine – producing terminologies and classifications for diagnoses and...

Members of La Via Campesina and other groups condemn market-based solutionsHector Rodriguez, who runs an alternative radio station in Cancun called Reptil, decided on a novel way to protest the commercialisation of forestry.As hundreds of people marched to the venue of the United Nations Climate Change Conference on Tuesday, Mr. Rodriguez walked up to the posse of Mexican policemen with riot shields and launched into an impassioned plea to help...