On November 11, 2011, a big campaign was launched to make citizens of India aware of the Right to Education Act. The campaign has the potential to engage citizens in demanding their rights. Hopefully, the effort will also push the government at different levels to prepare to provide the “rights” as envisaged by the law.   At the core of the law is a “guarantee” — a guarantee for quality, free and...

Wajahat Habibullah, chairperson, National Commission for Minorities, speaks to Kavita Chowdhury on reservation for Muslims, the RTI Act and the controversy over withdrawal of AFSPA in Kashmir. You had recently visited Rajasthan. In Bharatpur district’s Gopalgarh village, some members of the minority community, Mev Muslims, were killed and the state administration was accused of mishandling the matter. What is your view? A communal riot is an unpardonable crime. The state government has taken...

As the local people determinedly continue to resist the commissioning of the Kudankulam reactors, the statements of the nuclear establishment have acquired a desperate edge. The chief of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) claimed that a “foreign hand” was behind the protests. The former President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, while assuring the locals that the reactors were “100% safe,” also wrote an article in The Hindu (“Special Essay,”...

-Economic and Political Weekly   Mamata Banerjee concurs with P Chidambaram’s counterinsurgency strategy. She revels in rhetoric – Mamata Banerjee’s word of honour was parivartan (change). A large section of the people of West Bengal desperately wanted change, so parivartan brought her to the helm at Writers’ Building, with its Corinthian facade carrying over from the heyday of the East India Company, now, of course, the office and secretariat of the chief minister...

'Food subsidy is a massive burden…if so much is spent on subsidies, what is left for development?' agriculture minister Sharad Pawar recently asked. It is a legitimate question that is on the minds of many but seldom gets asked for fear of appearing callous. Are we prematurely trying to be a welfare State? In the developed world, safety nets like food stamps are regarded as humanitarian obligations toward the poor....