It needs pensive reflection to understand how an organisation whose name is perhaps the most widely recognised public sector brand across the length and breadth of India could become the target of so much instant anger and contempt in the highest legislative forum of the republic. Krishna Kumar (anhsirk.kumar@gmail.com) teaches education at Delhi University. The cyclone that hit Parliament on 11 and 14 May over the so-called cartoon controversy indicates, among other...

Mihir Shah, member of the Planning Commission and chairman of the committee to redraft rules and guidelines of NREGA, tells Sreelatha Menon that the Act may also cover farm labourers. The consortium of NGOs that recommended changes in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) was founded by you, but your suggestions have been criticised. You seem to consider it a lack of demand rather than a supply problem. First, you should...

Do agencies like the Ford Foundation push their own agenda through the NGOs they support? It’s often said, tongue in cheek, that India’s “shadow” government works out of the nondescript, low-slung buildings abutting the Lodhi Garden in Delhi. That’s partly hubris, but it also stems from being close to the centre of power. This rarefied zone houses powerful “cultural” institutions like the India International Centre, as well as a host...

The rural development ministry has proposed several changes in the rural job guarantee programme to ensure timely payment of wages and eradicate graft at a time when the Congress party-led ruling alliance has come under fire for poor governance and its failure to tackle corruption. The ministry has listed nine challenges to the proper functioning of the programme and proposed possible modifications in a note. The challenges include ensuring demand-driven legal...

Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are among the Indian states that have failed to name an ombudsman to handle grievances and prevent graft related to the central government’s flagship rural jobs programme, even two years after they were directed to do so. Only 15 of the nation’s 28 states have appointed the ombudsmen, according to the ministry of rural development. Assam, Haryana, Kerala and Tamil Nadu also haven’t appointed the watchdog. Setting up...