Mani Shankar Aiyar has probably not read Dale Carnegie's best-seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People. A few years ago, in a St Stephens alumni register, former External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh wrote, "I am what I am because of the college". Prompt came Aiyar's rejoinder: "Why blame the college!" Politics though is not a college campus. The ready wit and pungent sarcasm which might earn applause in a debating...
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Ration shops to go hi-tech by Ravleen Kaur
AGRICULTURE minister Sharad Pawar has launched smart cards in Haryana and Chandigarh as a pilot project aimed at streamlining the public distribution system (PDS). Smart cards will replace paper cards and the subsidised ration bought at fair price shops (FPS) will be recorded online. The smart card will have biometric identification details of the beneficiary like fingerprints and iris scans. A smart card will also record the amount of stock a...
More »RTI applies to Central govt bodies in J&K: HC by Utkarsh Anand
In a verdict that blows away the immunity clause availed by Jammu and Kashmir-based central government organisations like the Indian Army while refusing to disclose information under the RTI Act, the Delhi High Court on Friday ruled that such establishments were not precluded from the Transparency law and were obligated to disclose information to the family of those posted in the state. Directing the Indian Army to hand over court...
More »Serious flaws in implementation of MNREGA, says Aruna Roy by Seema Chishti
Five years after the passage of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, now known as the MNREGA after Mahatma Gandhi, activists central to lobbying for it are seeing serious flaws in its implementation. Absence of a mechanism to deal with the flaws, they say, are defeating the purpose of the Act. Aruna Roy, activist and member of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council, in both its avatars, told The Indian Express...
More »Harsh ground realities could trip RTE vision by Cordelia Jenkins
In an upstairs classroom at a residential school in Mal, near Lucknow, the girls are revising for their exams. As the light starts to fade at the glassless windows, each girl takes a brightly coloured plastic lamp and carries it to her space on the floor. There is no electricity, but the lamps are solar powered. They have been donated jointly by Swedish company Ikea and the United Nations Children’s...
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