It’s been raining “rights” in Indian policy for the last few years — education, work, food, service, healthcare, and much else. This “Diet Coke” approach to poverty reduction — the sweetness without the calories — was always dangerous because of unknown side effects. Commenting in 1790 on the consequences of the French Revolution, Edmund Burke said: “They have found their punishment in their success. Laws overturned, tribunals subverted, industry without...

The flexipool of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) funds has been the juiciest target for fund plunderers. The head under which huge budget was earmarked for activities like construction and strengthening of healthcare facilities, provided ample scope for pilferage. The pattern of spending on infrastructure building and maintenance proves how extravagant UP has been on this count. Every single year, since the inception of the NRHM in 2005-06, the state...

-The Business Standard   The week-long deadlock between United Action Committee (UAC), a pro-Posco group and the Jagatsinghpur district administration has been resolved following the apology tendered by the district officials for last Saturday's incident in which police had attacked innocent land losers. The district officials assured to take expeditious steps to fulfill UAC's six-point charter of demands. These demands included employment to each family, contract work to local people and employment...

Mahtab Alam examines the trouble with the steel project and suggests a way out THE PROPOSED mega Posco project and the anti-Posco movement are back in the news after the violence at the proposed site on 16 July. According to the reports I got, on that day, eight platoons of police attacked and lathicharged peaceful protesters in the village of Nuagaon, Jagatsinghpur district, Odisha. The protesters, despite being mostly women, were...

Matter begins: What is the impact of the National Rural Employment Guarentee Act on rural wages? That is the question that the pundits are asking today. It's a query which feeds into a larger question. Six years have passed since NREGA became a legal reality. What is its village-level impact? It's a complex question to answer. NREGA undertakes to provide employment to anyone who asks for it. Which makes it...