Since 1947, successive governments have missed innumerable opportunities to put the country on the path of sustained, inclusive growth. Time and again, quixotic ideology has led to meaningless debates, antediluvian policy and inexplicable strangulation of capacity buildup in both physical and social infrastructure. Even today, while the GAP between current and projected national demand and supply is well acknowledged, the government continues to drag its feet in creating the policy...

Taking on the Department of Information Technology and Administrative Reforms, under which the state information commission falls, Punjab CIC RI Singh asserted that the rules framed by the Punjab government were in conflict with the RTI Act. “The powers to make the rules have been vested with the government to carry out the provisions of this Act and not to thwart them,” he said. Singh said although a formal direction to...

After a GAP of five months, the West Bengal Information Commission held a meeting on Monday. But even as chief information commissioner (CIC) Sujit Sarkar promised to "streamline" things, the panel's performance since its inception in 2005 has been nothing to write home about. Among those who keenly studied implementation of the Right to Information Act, 2005, in Bengal is Magsaysay awardee Arvind Kejriwal. Findings by Kejriwal's Public Cause Research...

Many endosulfan sufferers in Kerala still not recognised NARAYANA Vokalliga from Belur village in Kasaragod breathed his last on November 20 just as his son was explaining how his father had suffered from exposure to endosulfan for 30 years. The former employee of the Plantation Corporation of Kerala used to spray the toxic pesticide manually in the corporation’s cashew plantations at Nanjamparamba estate. When the corporation switched to aerial spraying, Narayan prepared...

In recent years, the agricultural growth rate has tended to be lower than the population growth rate. This year, the former is nearing the target of 4%. But we still have a very large percentage of undernourished children, women and men. Poverty and destitution also remain stubborn. The Indian food security enigma rises from the mismatch between the grain mountains and the hungry millions. What are the prospects for ensuring...