Seldom rural citizens get the chance to meet high-level officials who are responsible for delivery of public services and implement pro-poor schemes. But this was made possible thanks to the Accountability Yatra, which is taking place in Rajasthan since December 2015. It is indeed a rare opportunity to find a District Education Officer (DEO) being asked directly by a simple villager in a public meeting that in how many school...
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Child Malnutrition declining, though not fast enough
There is some good news amid gloom! Preliminary findings of a survey in India as quoted by the Global Nutrition Report 2014 shows that prevalence of malnutrition among children aged below 5 years has come down between 2005-06 and 2013-14, even though we have a long way to go. (See links and bullet points below). The survey on malnutrition and hunger, called the Rapid Survey on Children (RSOC), was conducted after...
More »Very few women use RTI Act
The Right to Information Act, enacted in 2005, has been considered as the most effective tool in the hands of citizens to fight for transparency and accountability. However, there exists huge gender gap in awareness and usage of RTI Act, finds the report entitled People's Monitoring of the RTI Regime in India 2011-13, released in October 2014 (please see the link below). Prepared by RTI Assessment and Advocacy Group (RaaG) and...
More »Tilt the power balance in favour of the poor -Ashwini Kulkarni
-The Hindustan Times Pragati Abhiyan and a member of the National Consortium of CSOs working on MGNREGA India is a vast country and every year either the quantity or the distribution of rainfall is deviant in one part or the other. Moreover, Indian farming is still predominantly rain-fed. In such a scenario, the MGNREGA can do two very important jobs: Drought relief and drought mitigation. Recently, the NDA discussed the MGNREGA in Parliament....
More »National Rural Livelihoods Mission a huge hit, government claims -Radheshyam Jadhav
-The Times of India PUNE: National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) is the biggest programme for women empowerment in India, stated a statement issued by the government. At present there are 3 crore women, who are members of Self Help Groups (SHG) and in the next 5 to 7 years , seven crore women households will be covered under it. At present bank linkages to NRLM are to the tune of Rs...
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