Aruna Roy , member of National Advisory Council, is in the thick of preparations for a truck yatra and dharna to mobilise people for demands relating to rights of weaker sections and systemic improvement of governance. Bharat Dogra spoke to her about the need for this mobilization: The general impression is that Rajasthan has a better record of governance. I agree that Rajasthan has an above-average record in the implementation of NREGS,...
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Information as a right by N Bhaskara Rao
Five years after the enactment of the Right to Information Act, awareness of the law, its provisions and potential appears to be very low. Marking the completion of five years, in September 2010, of the enactment of the Right to Information Act, the Central Information Commission (CIC) held the fifth annual convention on “RTI: Challenges and Opportunities,” in New Delhi on September 13 and 14. It was largely a gathering of...
More »Ringing the winds of change in the new Bihar by Suneha Dutta
Bihar's programme of filing RTI applications through a call center is a novel one. The question is whether the model is effiicient enough to be replicated in other states like Karnataka. If you are in Bihar, you can get electronic goods repaired, phone numbers, buy things through call centres — and also file an RTI application. Zafar Hassan has filed two applications in the past two years through call centres,...
More »Rural job hope by Cithara Paul
Qualified rural youth now have a chance to get a government job, if only on contract, with 12 lakh technical vacancies opening up in gram panchayats across the country. The panchayati raj ministry headed by C.P. Joshi has decided that each gram panchayat will be allowed to recruit between four and six persons, including engineers, accountants and computer technicians. There are 2.5 lakh panchayats in the country. The state selection commissions will...
More »Displacement
KEY TRENDS • Section 105 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, which provides for excluding 13 Central legislation, including Land Acquisition (Mines) Act 1885, Atomic Energy Act, 1962, Railway Act 1989, National Highways Act 1956 and Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act, 1978, from its purview, has been amended for payment of compensation with rigours $ • The amendments have now...
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