The total expenditure on central schemes for the poor and on the major subsidies exceeds the states' share of central taxes. These schemes are chronic bad performers due to a culture of immunity in public administration and weakened local governments. Arguing that the poor should be trusted to use these resources better than the state, a radical redirection with substantial direct transfers to individuals and complementary decentralisation to local governments...

-The Times of India CHENNAI: India ranks second globally in accessing private details of its citizens, next only to the US, if the latest data from Google is to be believed. The transparency report by the internet search giant lists out requests it received from governments across the world to access information on the users of its various services. In the first six months of 2012, India made 2,319 requests involving 3,467...

-The Pioneer   Alleging large scale irregularities in the implementation of the Union Government’s flagship programme, Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in the State, the opposition on Wednesday demanded that the Odisha Government should extend the ongoing CBI probe to all the remaining 26 districts. However, Panchayati Raj Minister Maheswar Mohanty rejected the allegation. Since the charges of large scale corruption as levelled by the Center for Environmental Studies and...

Kanak Dixit: We have with us Aruna Roy, from Devdungri village in Rajasthan, who has, among other things, been able to take the Right to Information (RTI) from janasunuwais, or public hearings at the village level, all the way to national legislation that encompasses all of India. It is a movement that is truly global in scale. Aruna, a question that has been troubling me quite a bit in the context...

Central allocation for the Mahatama Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) has been falling in recent years, with this year recording the steepest decline. Money released for the scheme fell from Rs 35,242 crore last year to Rs 21,441 crore this year, while expenditure has gone down from Rs 39,000 crore last year to Rs 20,000 crore as of January-end. The average workdays under the scheme, which provides a legal entitlement...