If Rajiv Gandhi were alive, he would have been delighted to see his view on leakages confirmed by a research study on the public distribution system [How Can Food Subsidies Work Better? Answers from India and the Philippines by Shikha Jha and Bharat Ramaswami (http://www.adb.org/documents/working-papers/2010/economics-wp221.pdf)]. The ADB study showed that the deserving poor in India received only 10 per cent of the benefits from the system. Nearly twice accrues to...

The United Progressive Alliance government on Friday unveiled its second draft Bill addressing the burning issues of land acquisition as well as rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R). The National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011, as recommended by the National Advisory Council, will make it mandatory that gram sabhas are consulted and the R&R package is executed before the acquired land is transferred. Union Minister of Rural Development Jairam Ramesh...

The Right to Information Act was the great white hope of Indian citizens who are consistently denied rightful information. Not only does it specify that most information in the public domain would be provided to citizens by right, but it also ensured that failure to do so by the bloated bureaucracy would result in penalties for erring officials. Trust the government, though, to subvert its own good intentions. The state government has...

Even as academic circles debate whether schools should do away with the detention policy (pass-fail system) as well as examinations that put pressure on students, the West Bengal government is yet to notify the Right to Education Act nearly 15 months after it came into force all over the country in April 2010. Recently, School Education Minister Bratya Basu said the government was considering a proposal to do away with examinations...

-The Telegraph   All 208 tea gardens in the Terai and the Dooars today put up notices, saying it would be difficult for them to disburse wages and rations in the coming weeks if the embargo on the despatch of tea continued. The Progressive Tea Workers’ Union, the labour wing of the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad, has been stalling the despatch of tea from gardens since Tuesday to demand a hike in...