-The Economic Times Recently, we were witness to a noisy spat between economists Amartya Sen and Jagdish Bhagwati. Some commentators linked this to a Congress-versus-BJP fight over development models. Sen, the advocate of investment in education, health and nutrition as necessary for economic growth, was presumed to speak for the Congress. Bhagwati, the proponent of growthfirst model, was seen to be batting for the BJP. Indeed, Bhagwati has cited Gujarat as...
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Govt to table bill exempting parties from RTI Act today
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The government is slated to introduce a bill to amend the RTI Act excluding political parties from the ambit of the law in LokSabha on Monday. The bill will be introduced by minister of state for personnel, public grievances and pensions V Narayanasamy. The bill was cleared by the Union Cabinet on August 1 and has been under fire from eminent Citizens and RTI activists. The...
More »Poverty play -Jayati Ghosh
-Frontline Once more, without feeling: the government's latest poverty estimates. YET again the Central government has mired itself in controversy by releasing its latest poverty estimates based on the consumption expenditure survey of the NSSO (National Sample Survey Office) Survey of 2011-12. The Planning Commission's poverty line, using methodology suggested by the Tendulkar Committee in 2010, is now apparently defined as the spending of Rs. 27.20 per capita per day in rural...
More »For a more inclusive ballot-Anup Surendranath
-The Hindu While denying voting rights to undertrials contradicts the principle that a person is innocent until proved guilty, disenfranchising convicts will aggravate their alienation from society The Supreme Court's decision last month in Chief Election Commissioner v. Jan Chaukidar has attracted significant attention for its perceived potential to address the criminalisation of politics. Justices A.K Patnaik and S.J. Mukhopadhaya ruled that since one of the conditions to be a candidate under...
More »Move to amend RTI fires citizen protest
The UPA government’s proposed bid to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act, in order to avoid compliance with the June 3 CIC order bringing records of political parties within RTI’s ambit, is sparking widespread citizen criticism and mobilisation. (Pl read the links below for more info on RTI and the bid to amend it) An online petition put out by the National Campaign for the People’s Right to Information has...
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