Tamil Nadu has stopped using banks to pay workers employed under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), turning the clock back on the programme that was expected to eliminate layers of middlemen in reaching money to the poor. Rural development ministry officials at the Centre confirmed the development, but termed it “a temporary setback”. However, Tamil Nadu is not alone. Andhra Pradesh too has asked some of its poorest...
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RTI Act Levelling it against corruption by Anirudha Neupane
After the National Information Commission (NIC) issued an order in the name of the Finance Ministry to give information requester Taranath Dahal, an RTI activist, a copy of the report of the committee formed by Inland Revenue Department (IRD) to investigate practice of tax avoidance through fake VAT bills, the ministry provided it to him. Though the ministry provided incomplete information to the requester, it is, however, a good beginning...
More »Press Council has failed: Justice Verma
-The Hindu J.S. Verma fires latest salvo in the war against Markandey Katju's comments The former Chief Justice of India and current head of the television news media's self-regulatory mechanism, J.S. Verma, has fired the latest salvo in the war of words following the recent controversial comments of Markandey Katju, the former Supreme Court judge and new head of the Press Council of India (PCI). “Everyone knows the Press Council has failed in...
More »Fighting for the 99 per cent in times of austerity
-The Hindu As the head of the largest trade union federation, Sharan Burrow represents the face of the worker at the high-tables of the world. Ms Burrow is the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which represents 175 million workers in 153 countries. Ahead of this week's G20 Summit in Cannes, Ms. Burrow has, in meetings with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European leaders, warned of the...
More »India's official poverty line doesn't measure up by Jayati Ghosh
It is time to separate people's real needs from the arbitrary assessments of poverty that have guided Indian governments India's poverty line has always been a matter of huge debate, but it was a discussion mostly confined to economists and policymakers. But the matter has now gone public, following a row about an affidavit from the planning commission to the supreme court of India, in which the official poverty line was...
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