Poor spending on NREGS by Maharashtra - only Rs351 crore out of Rs668 crore - can be seen in two ways. One, apathy towards the poor and carelessness, and two, less money spent means less money stolen. All employment schemes are seen as doles, work is faked, ghosts are paid and the bucks swallowed by the establishment - politicians to petty bureaucrats - with the poor guy in the boondocks...

CHANDRAWAL, India—Satbir Sharma's wife is dead. His family lives in fear. His father's left leg is shattered, leaving him on crutches for life.   Sharma's only hope lies in a new law that gives him the right to know what is happening in the investigation of his wife's death. Most of all, he wants to know what will happen to the village mayor, now in jail on murder charges. He talks quietly, under...

-The Telegraph   Law minister Salman Khurshid today unveiled a slew of bills to be taken up in Parliament’s winter session to demonstrate the government’s commitment to fighting graft, other than the Lokpal Bill that he said would address the “concerns of the common man”. The whistle-blowers’ bill, sports bill and the judicial accountability bills are among those on the agenda, the minister told a news conference in the run-up to the session...

Health is a state of mental, social and physical well-being and not merely an absence of disease or infirmity. To achieve this noble objective, India requires health care professionals who are trained in institutions with standardised infrastructure, and the availability of accessible and equitable health care for both the rural and urban populace. Recently, the health sector has been in the news — from the creation of a rural based...

The contrast could not have been starker. On one side is an English teacher leading fishermen and villagers, using his unbridled oratory to spew propaganda against Kudankulam’s ready-to-start nuclear plant that will produce 1,000MW. Arraigned against him is a group of engineers who have devoted their lives to building nuclear power plants. Affable, soft-spoken and hurt that the world’s “safest” nuclear plant that they have built has not been allowed to...