Greenpeace, in collaboration with several civil society organisations, has launched a peoples’ campaign against ‘genetically contaminated food.’ The idea is to get thousands of citizens to write and send faxes to the Union Environment Minister Jairam Raesh before a high-powered government committee called the GEAC approves commercial cultivation in India of Bt brinjal.   The activists believe that urgent action is required before the process of contaminating our food supply...

Right to Information Act completes four years of its enactment  Democratic struggle is an integral part of social change, says Chief Information Commissioner ‘Transparency and accountability are integral to the success of Right to Information’ When Mazloom Nadaf was sanctioned Rs.25,000 by the gram panchayat under the Indira Niwas Yojana, he knew little of the struggle that awaited him. This 70-year-old rickshaw puller from Bihar’s Madhubani district begged and pleaded...

Growing numbers of elected representatives fund their poll campaigns with corporate backing. And growing numbers of people with a big business background have ventured directly into the electoral arena.  Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid’s call for restraint, however mild, on the CEO feeding frenzy at the compensation trough, seems the least objectionable statement made by a Minister in months. (Contrast this, for example, with the Agriculture Minister’s warning that people...

Social audit of rural jobs scheme promises to empower people Social audit of rural jobs scheme promises to empower people with information about how they are being denied the benefits of the schemes meant for them. Something comes between entitlements and beneficiaries when it comes to social sector schemes. It is not necessarily corruption or greed of the providers. It is the ignorance of the beneficiaries. If one were to drive through villages...

  Several civil society and trade union organizations are getting together in Delhi over the next week to protest against the proposed cash for food scheme of the Delhi Government and to press for a more fair and equitable criterion of identification of BPL families, in the National Capital. BPL families living in slums areas, Jhuggies & unauthorized colonies are expected to participate in big numbers, say the organizers. Led...