Cash transfers, the latest global development fashion, involve several risks in India, not least the risk of forgetting the need for continuing structural change. WHEN I was growing up, several decades ago, middle-class society in India was always a little delayed in catching on to Western fashions whether in music or dress or in other aspects. The past decades of globalisation seemed to have changed all that. Modern communications technology...
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UN-backed report shows most of world’s coral reefs under threat
An estimated 75 per cent of the world’s coral reefs are threatened by local human activity, including over-fishing, coastal development and pollution, and global pressures such as climate change, warming seas and rising ocean acidification, according to a United Nations-backed report unveiled today. “Reefs at Risk Revisited,” launched today in Washington and London, says that if the threats to the reefs are not dealt with, more than 90 per cent of...
More »Simpreet Singh, RTI activist from National Alliance for Peoples Movement (NAPM) interviewed by Viju B
Activist Simpreet Singh received the national RTI council award instituted by Arvind Kejriwal's Public Cause Research Foundation on behalf of the National Alliance for Peoples Movement (NAPM) which uses the RTI Act to expose fraud and misappropriation of public assets. NAPM used the RTI Act to investigate Adarsh, the tower meant for Kargil war widows, but usurped by state bureaucrats, politicians and defence personnel who had no role to play...
More »Plug the hole in the bucket by Santosh Mehrotra
Thanks to the Right to Information Act, 2005, and also the activism of NGOs and of the media, a culture of accountability is growing in the country. That is the good news. However, the media, NGOs and RTI activists can only do so much. They can focus the attention of the public and parliamentarians on egregious scams, but rarely address the systemic flaws that result in leakage of funds. We have...
More »Dowry harassment likely to become a bailable offence by Akhilesh Kumar Singh
The Union law department has launched an exercise to tone down the law on matrimonial cruelty, including cases of dowry harassment. Effectively, dowry harassment may soon become a bailable offence. To protect social fibre of family life and check alleged misuse of the law, the department is contemplating changes in Section 498-A of the IPC that defines the offense of matrimonial cruelty. Section 498-A was inserted into the IPC by an amendment...
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