Barring the very corrupt, everyone would support the ongoing campaign against corruption. But not either Team Anna's specific solution or the means it employs. In fact, there is every reason to oppose and condemn the move to blackmail the government into conceding a very flawed demand. A monolithic, all-powerful body that would hold every functionary of the state including the judiciary to account, and investigate and prosecute them if necessary, while...

The government plans to focus its flagship rural jobs guarantee plan on the poorest districts of the country as there is a growing recognition within the administration that the scheme's nation-wide rollout has adversely impacted its performance. Launched in 2006, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee programme promises at least 100 days of unskilled manual work in a year to each household in rural India. The scheme was initially...

The bidirectional relationship between economic development and health justifies greater investment in the health sector. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has been described as one of the largest and most ambitious programmes to revive health care in the world and has many achievements to its credit. It seeks to provide universal access to health care, which is affordable, equitable, and of good quality. It has increased health finance, improved infrastructure...

Its facets include concentration of media ownership and the transformation of news into a commodity. THE last two decades have witnessed a dramatic transformation of India's ‘mediascape' – a term first used by Arjun Appadurai, an academic of Indian origin based in the United States, to describe how visual imagery impacts the world and to describe and situate the role of the mass media in global cultural flows. While there...

Poor, pregnant with third child? Even the state’s giving up on you. Why Less For More     * The ministry of health and family welfare wants to target poor, pregnant women with more than two children, take away entitlements and benefits     * Critics say the two-child norm will severely restrict the number of beneficiaries of the Janani Suraksha Yojana scheme. The scheme, launched in 2005, has been a great success.     *...