With the government serving a severe blow to transparency in the Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects worth one trillion rupees the Central Information Commission has decided to seek Prime Minister’s Manmohan Singh’s intervention. “We will be writing to the Prime Minister that there should not be a blanket ban on making RTI applicable to PPP projects,” said an Information Commissioner, following a decision at the commission’s last meeting. The CIC wanted the...

The Indian media have grown rapidly in scale, reach, influence, and revenues. But all stakeholders must realise that the ethical underpinning of professional journalism in the country has weakened and that the corrosion of public life in our country has impacted journalism. So what needs to be done? We have been witness in recent years to rapid, and unprecedented, changes in our society, economy, and polity. These have also transformed the...

The communal violence bill prepared by the National Advisory Council (NAC) seeks fundamentally to change how the government deals with violence against minorities. The bill focuses on religious and linguistic minorities as well the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but religious minorities are at its heart. The bill has some undeniable strengths, but it suffers from two analytically fatal flaws. First, it places excessive faith in the state machinery. Though...

The challenge is to acknowledge the inappropriateness of the current health education and delivery systems, and refashion health care delivery relevant for the country. The confluence of recent events is an opportunity to rethink health systems. The new Medical Council of India, the proposed Human Resources in Health Bill, the penultimate year of the National Rural Health Mission, preparations for the 12th Five Year Plan and the promise of a significant...

The Delhi Jal Board, MCD, NDMC and other such agencies will have to ensure minimum safety and health standard for sewerage and other unorganised workers by giving them free medical treatment, thanks to a Supreme Court verdict. Families of workers employed by civic agencies such as the Delhi Jal Board and Municipal Corporation of Delhi will henceforth be entitled to immediate ex-gratia payment of Rs 1 lakh. A bench of justices GS...