The first global report on disability reveals how the exclusion of 1 billion people – invisible in official statistics and absent from aid budgets – is holding back development progress The UN millennium development goals (MDGs) may not be met by 2015 unless urgent action is taken to address the needs of people with disabilities, according to the first world report on disability. More than 1 billion people live with a disability,...

Governments can acquire land for “public purpose” while making sure that the displaced are compensated, relocated and rehabilitated. THE violent conflict over land acquisition in Uttar Pradesh and the persisting resistance to land acquisition for the Posco project in Jagatsinghpur district of Orissa are merely recent instances that exemplify the growing stand-off between the Indian state and its people centred on land. On the one side are governments (both Central...

The steadily rising rate of economic growth in India has recently been around 8 percent per year (it is expected to be 9 percent this year), and there is much speculation about whether and when India may catch up with and surpass China’s over 10 percent growth rate. Despite the evident excitement that this subject seems to cause in India and abroad, it is surely rather silly to be obsessed...

The Right to Information Act (RTI Act), barring certain exceptions, can be used to get information about decisions taken by public authorities, details of public expenditure, status of projects and many other administrative issues. RTI is also used as an effective tool to prevent corruption, and hence, it is essential that citizens use this Act regularly to keep a check on public authorities. In order to get accurate responses, citizens are...

Bangalore-based lawyer Sajan Poovayya is an outside counsel to Google Inc. and other Internet companies who have been sued in India for content on their Web sites that users or authorities deem objectionable. Having been through many such cases, he’s in a good position to assess how a new set of controversial Indian Internet regulations affect the landscape. His verdict: the rules are sloppy, vague, perhaps unconstitutional, and wind up exposing...