NGOs To No Go’s     * NGOs have mushroomed; so have instances of misappropriation of funds     * Not disclosing expenditure and receipts; nor revealing who funds them     * Not setting up NGO for the task it was funded for     * Flocking to 'hot' topics, inviting accusations of singing to industrialists’ tunes     * For every NGO supporting a cause, another springs up against that cause *** NGO numbers     * 3.3 million Number of NGOs...

The class bias in government policy is clear in the decision to release a small amount of foodgrain in the open market to tackle inflation. MOST people would agree that there is a strong element of speculation underlying the current inflation and that forward trading contributes to it. Yet the government, though it has banned forward trading in certain commodities under public pressure, is curiously reluctant to see this point....

The finance ministry has offered only a 12% increase in the budgetary support to the central plan for the coming fiscal against the Planning Commission's demand for an 18% hike. The plan panel sought higher support, citing increased requirement for the flagship schemes, particularly MGNREGA, or Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act . The North Block, constrained by its compulsion to return to fiscal consolidation and additional expenditure due...

Information Commissioners across the country have caused a loss of Rs 86 crore during 2009-10 by not imposing penalties in cases where they ought to have done so as per provisions of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, according to a study by Public Cause Research Foundation. The total expenditure on information commissions in the country (barring Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh) was just Rs 45.4 crore. This is significantly...

So why is the UPA hell-bent on killing its unique success story: the NREGA? Here's the inside narrative of the conspiracy. It took 47 days of a protest sit-in at Jaipur to make the state budge(1). It's notable that the objective of this protracted protest was not to coerce the Rajasthan government for an extra share of the state's resources, but to hold the government accountable to the Constitution and its...