Dr Abhijit Sen is Member, Planning Commission of India. He is a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cambridge (currently on leave as Professor of Economics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University) and has also taught at the Universities of Sussex, Oxford and Cambridge. Besides serving various think tanks in the states and at the centre, Dr Sen has been a consultant with UNDP, ILO, FAO and various other multilateral...
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RTI lessons for Class VIII students unlikely next year
-The Times of India The citizen empowering tool of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, is finding it tough to make an entry into the text books of the state high school syllabus. The AP State Council for Education Research and Training (APSCERT) had accepted the state information commission's proposal to introduce RTI in Class VIII text books in 2010. It was then decided that the lesson on RTI would be...
More »Starvation deaths in Assam Tea Estate
Historians tell us of the colonial era stories of miserable conditions of workers, even bonded labour, in tea plantations of eastern India. However, the situation improved after independence. In the past few decades the tea industry has made steady profits even in worst years of economic downturn. And that is why reports of starvation deaths in tea plantations of Assam are so shocking. An Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) report says that...
More »Seeds Of Change by Lola Nayar
Maharashtra sounds clarion call on hybrid crop liability Competition is tough in the seed market, which may explain why marketing gimmicks are often used to woo farmers. It’s tougher still for the farmers to get compensation when the claims fail and they are saddled with a bad or damaged crop. Sometimes the state government steps in to offer compensation or the farmers turn to the consumer court for relief. Typically, of...
More »RTI application that busted NGO's fake recruitment drive in Ranchi by Jaideep Deogharia
The Right to Information Act (RTI) can be used in different ways not only to expose corruption in government offices and public sector enterprises but also to force private NGOs and societies under Section 2(f) of the act to cough up information. Using the tool, noose can be tightened around those private agencies that try to fool people in the name of being associated with government-sponsored schemes. The option available in the...
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