NREGA has always been touted as the UPAs flagship scheme but there have been a number of instances when the scheme has been misused by those who are dispensing funds. IAS officers Sukhveer Singh and Chandrashekar Borkar both posted in Seedhi district in Madhya Pradesh, between 2006 and 2007, were charged with misappropriating nine crore rupees during this tenure. Funds meant for NREGA, a scheme that ensures hundred days of work...
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RTI Activist Gera getting threat calls by Dipak Kumar Dash
A Faridabad-based RTI Activist has alleged that he has been receiving threat calls from the local land mafia for filing a PIL against illegal conversion of industrial land for commercial use in the city. Although the Punjab and Haryana High Court had asked the city police to look into his threat perception in 2009, police have done nothing so far. Kishan Lal Gera, who was appointed as an adviser to...
More »Going against the grain by Reetika Khera
The National Advisory Council (NAC) had been widely credited with framing three pro-people legislations — the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), the Right to Information (RTI) and the Forest Rights Act — under the UPA 1 government. So when NAC 2 began discussions on the Food Security Act in mid-2010, expectations were high. The initial vision of an act with a universal public distribution system (PDS), extensive children's entitlements...
More »Takeaways from an RTI experience by LV Srinivasan
A case where request for info on some Budget 2007 notings was rejected by the CBDT, but made available by the Central Information Commission, the Second Appellate Authority under the RTI Act. The Right to Information Act of 2005 is a very important piece of legislation to bring about complete transparency in the functioning of the bureaucracy and thus increase accountability as well as reduce corruption. Since it is a relatively new...
More »MNC in secret pact with universities for food education by Rema Nagarajan
Four public-funded national universities have entered into a "confidential" pact with Nestle, one of the biggest baby food and commercial food companies, for nutrition awareness programmes for adolescent school-going girls in government-run village schools. Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI) has written a letter to the secretary for school education and literacy, Anshu Vaish, protesting against "brand promotion using the public education system" and saying that the MoU (memorandum of understanding)...
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