Several civil society organisations of Tamil Nadu are getting together to organise a Peoples’ Audit in the state to assess the need and efficacy of the proposed 139 Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that are in various stages of approval. The audit will take place from October 24 to October 26 and members of the media are welcome to participate and witness the exercise in the presence of eminent economists, social...

Will the Congress-NCP gain from a multiplicity of fronts which could dissipate the anti-Congress vote? Or will the Shiv Sena-BJP benefit from the Third Front’s cutting into the Congress-NCP vote?  Whatever the failings of Maharashtra’s political class, and these are many, a lack of optimism is not among them. Even after the last date for the withdrawal of nominations to the Assembly elections, there are more fronts, real and imagined,...

INDIA’S achievement in setting up a huge structure of local self-government institutions has won worldwide recognition and respect. However, the massive numbers of rural self-government or panchayat raj representatives should not be allowed to obscure the reality of some very important weaknesses in our panchayat raj institutions. True, some states have notable achievements to their credit in this respect, but taking an overview of the national situation it can be...

Five farmers committed suicide from the Vidarbha region of Maharastra within the last two days of the month of August, 2009. The farmers who committed suicides belonged to the districts for which special relief package was being announced recently. According to a press note circulated by the Vidarbha People’s Movement Committee, within the last 48 hours of August, farmers were forced to commit suicide as they faced crop failures owing...

The private sector uses bribes to influence public policy, laws and regulations, believe over half of those polled for 2009 Global Corruption Barometer. The Barometer, a global public opinion survey released today by Transparency International (TI), also found that half of respondents expressed a willingness to pay a premium to buy from corruption-free companies. “These results show a public sobered by a financial crisis precipitated by weak regulations and a...