The UPA government has betrayed its promise of inclusive growth over the years as a result of which poverty ratios have remained extremely high despite rapid economic growth, says Praful Bidwai. The new National Advisory Council must act urgently on nutritional security and public healthcare, he adds. The reconstitution of the National Advisory Council under Sonia Gandhi, announced by India’s United Progressive Alliance government, is good news. The original NAC died...
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Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar
The government’s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and “not in the spirit of the election promises” in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday. The three-page note—a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times—came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers...
More »Hard to stomach by Biraj Patnaik
As the nation debates the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and its implications on food security for the country, it is pertinent to pause for a moment and ponder some of the structural reasons for the mismanagement of the food economy of the country. Forget the past or the future or even the present set of policies being pursued. The UPA-II is pushing the nation inexorably towards a regime of...
More »Does NREGA really work? by Surjit Bhalla
Despite tall claims, the NREGA programme is just a dud as most other “in the name of the poor” expenditures - and as much of a dud as predicted by Rajiv Gandhi A decade or so ago, Booker prize winner Arundhati Roy claimed that the building of dams in India had displaced more than 50 million people. This implied that one out of every three rural Indians had had to move...
More »Public funding of elections
Democratic political systems in every advanced western country have faced challenges posed by the role of political finance or money spent during elections. On the basis of their specific experiences, these countries have tried to tackle the issue of political funding during polls. The democratic political system is corrupted if elections are contested on the basis of financial resources provided by rich individuals or business corporations as these donors, from the...
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