Beginning 1 July, details of projects, minutes of board meetings and a whole lot else will be made public under a disclosure policy. “India’s right to information law is an inspiration for us,” says Isabel Guerrero, the Bank’s Vice-President for South Asia and one of the architects of the disclosure policy. The policy itself is new, but the process has been on, with voices like Guerrero’s within the Bank pressing...

If recent indicators are anything to go by – the failure to keep food prices down, the proposed national food security Act, the failure to ensure even minimum wages to construction workers at projects for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, to recount a few – it seems the country has given up even the pretence of caring about its children or their crippling, unbudging state of malnutrition. Leaders,...

The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme has been conceived as a major intervention by the Central government to deal with the high rates of infant mortality, low birth weight, and malnutrition among women and children. The scheme essentially targets children in the age group of zero to six years and women in the reproductive age group. The problem is that the ICDS is seen as the success story behind...

The Facebook page on the Right to Information challenges the government with some provocative questions. “We all pay taxes. Even a beggar on the street pays sales tax when he buys anything from the market. This money belongs to us. But where does this money go? Why are there no medicines in the hospitals? Why are people dying of starvation? Why are the roads in such pathetic conditions? Why are...

Granting elementary education as a fundamental right to the children of the country, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday asked the States and Union Territories to work together as part of a common national endeavour. Addressing the nation to mark the implementation of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 that makes elementary education an entitlement for children in the age group of 6-14 years, Dr. Singh...