The Supreme Court Bench headed by Chief Justice K. G. Balakrishnan set aside the verdict of Jharkhand High Court and upheld the constitutional validity of the amendment in the law that mandates reservations of the chairperson’s post of Panchayats at all levels for the Scheduled Tribe in all the scheduled areas. The bench struck down Section 4(G) of the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA), 1996 and held that other...

Violence in West Bengal’s western districts has reached crisis proportions. Each day, one or more cadre member or sympathizer of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPM] is killed either by Maoists or the Trinamul Congress (TMC). The Maoists have found common cause with the TMC, a breakaway from the Congress Party in Bengal. Mamata Banerjee, whose authoritarian populism draws from both Juan and Evita Peron, leads the TMC. Backed...

Highlights of the skill development programme * All rural youths in BPL category eligible * Govt. assures placement for at least 75 percent trainees * Youths to get training on technical and soft skills * MoUs with industrial houses to ensure placements * 75 percent expense to be borne by Centre, rest by state governments The Centre is firming up a skill development scheme for poor rural youth who will be given technical training by the...

Democracy is, everywhere, a work in progress. Like many other countries, India has imposed electoral quotas to improve the political empowerment of women and racial-ethnic minorities – that is, it has a political system that requires women to be elected to certain leadership positions. These rules represent a form of affirmative action, but they also resemble a feature of our own Constitution that reserves space in the Senate for two representatives...

The termination of the proposed social audits of works carried out under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in 16 panchayats -- one each from an equal number of districts -- in Rajasthan this past week has come as a rude shock to the social activists who pioneered the job scheme. Coming as it does from the Congress Government in the NREGS flagship State of Rajasthan, the development has...