Four mega-programmes of the government, meant to tackle big-ticket issues like child nutrition, school education, health and employment, appear to be faltering not because funds are short but because adequate manpower has not been put in place. This is the surprising finding of a new study done by the Center for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA), a New Delhi based think tank. The four mega-programs are Integrated Child Development Services...

JANAKI KNOWS well that it is hard for her to rear more than four children. Yet she is not willing to go to the sterilisation camp. Her husband would be of no help in taking such a decision. “He drinks heavily, beats me up every day,” she says. Janaki is not able to express her fears in clear terms, but it is difficult to imagine her summoning up the courage...

Magsaysay award winner and activist Sandeep Pandey has decided to return the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) achievement award along with the cash award of Rs. 44,000 that was presented to him in February 2009.   In a letter to Rural Development Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, he said that he is returning the award as no action has been taken yet in a 2009 incident in which dalit workers were beaten...

Twice every year, between 1981 and 2000, a helicopter would whirr around the hills of the Western Ghats in Kasargod, a district in north Kerala bordering Karnataka, spraying endosulfan over the cashew plantations on the upper reaches. Children would rush out to take a look at the helicopter and the white spray would settle like mist on their heads and on leaves and shimmer in the sunlight. But that’s also...

Even though the Central Government agreed to link the wages paid under MG-NREGA to the Consumer Price Index for Agricultural Labourers (CPIAL), it shied away from paying statutory minimum wages in various states of India. Their logic for this: Lack of clarity on who will bear the extra financial burden—the Centre or the states? A letter from the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to UPA and NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi dated 31...