A number of questions on the Unique Identification (UID) project continue to remain unanswered while the project itself is necessitated by the government's policy shift to play an indirect rather than direct role in providing services, a panel of researchers told journalists on the sidelines of a public talk on the subject at St. Xavier's College here on Saturday. Usha Ramanathan, researcher on jurisprudence, poverty and rights, said it was not...

Everyone agrees that there is a food crisis. As ordinary members of the public we know there’s one every time we go out shopping for vegetables. My mother knows there’s a crisis because, after recently sacking her cook, she discovered the lady had left with all the onions in the house. The media agrees there’s one, and sends more TV crews to talk to onion farmers, even though the TV reporters...

Over the past decade, as crops have failed year after year, 200,000 farmers have killed themselves Naryamaswamy Naik went to the cupboard and took out a tin of pesticide. Then he stood before his wife and children and drank it. "I don't know how much he had borrowed. I asked him, but he wouldn't say," Sugali Nagamma said, her tiny grandson playing at her feet. "I'd tell him: don't worry, we...

In a 12 December interview, Director-General of the J&K Police (JKP) Kuldeep Khoda was questioned by Tribune journalist Jupinderjit Singh about complaints that the JKP was ignoring RTI applications.  At one point, Mr. Khoda stated that the Police  “will not entertain [RTI applications] on investigations of any case,” explaining this information “could help the accused due to which the department generally discouraged such applications.” The DGP’s stance is problematic.  On one...

The Chhattisgarh model offers some key lessons on how to make the public distribution system deliverProbably the only thing extraordinary about Manglu is that he is the perfect example of an ordinary tribal. The 60-year-old belongs to the Pahadi Korba tribe and lives in Govindpur village of Sarguja district of Chhattisgarh. He best represents what modern India calls a below poverty line (BPL) beneficiary of various government schemes. Manglu earns...