Representatives of around 20 civil society organizations and NGOs met the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley as part of pre-budget consultation on social sector on 12 January, 2016. Immediately after the pre-budget consultation, a press conference was held by some of these organizations to convey the media persons what demands/ suggestions were made.   Subrat Das, Executive Director of Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA, http://www.cbgaindia.org/) informed us that during...

-The Telegraph Ranchi: Childbirths at home, no immunisation. Allegedly, this continues to happen in capital Ranchi, within city limits in a locality some 2km from Khel Gaon. A Jan Sunvai or district-level public hearing, held today under the aegis of National Urban Health Mission (NUHM), Jharkhand, had stunning disclosures like these from lower-tier urban healthcare workers, which may have ringing implications at a time Ranchi is eyeing the Centre's coveted Smart City...

-The Hindu With the U.S. showing a preference for plurilateral agreements over WTO multilateralism, developing nations must defend the global trading system against transnational corporations The 10th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which also marked the completion of two decades of functioning of the most recent of the multilateral institutions, ended with an agreement among trade ministers of the member countries that may have pushed the organisation to the...

-The Hindu Business Line As the Right to Information Act completes 10 years, we examine how RTI has changed people’s lives, become a byword for democracy, and helped alter the relationship between citizen and state Mintu Devi’s relationship with the ration shop changed the day she filed an RTI. In the jhuggis of New Seemapuri, situated on the northeastern edge of Delhi, she is a legend. The 37-year-old mother of four is...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Election Commission has informed the Supreme Court that it may not be feasible to let domestic migrants vote from wherever they have shifted to as such a step would be "fraught with risks". The poll panel, which submitted an interim report on Friday, contended that diluting the residential criteria might open the gates for manipulation and compromise the "purity of electoral rolls". The report came in response to...