Revenue dept issues direction to district collectors to provide details and particulars about all the activists seeking information under RTI Act In a move likely to raise a controversy, the state government is planning to keep all the RTI activists under  scanner. The state revenue department is learnt to have asked the district collectors to submit the details and particulars of all RTI activists from their districts, who have been filing...

Over the last few decades thenon-party volunteer organisations have been much more effective in Indian public space and more articulate in policy debates than the traditional Left parties. This essay, while recognising the manifold achievements of these organisations, reflects on the serious limitations of the activities of the voluntary sector and argues that when they usurp certain roles they can become a threat to representative democracy. [Pranab Bardhan (bardhan@econ.berkeley.edu) is at...

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...

-MSN   The Rural Development Ministry has turned down a request from the Agriculture ministry to suspend MGNREGA projects during peak farming seasons because of labour shortage. Agriculture Secretary P K Basu had written to the Rural Development Ministry to this effect recently. He had sought amendment in the job guarantee scheme so that agriculture is not effected particularly during sowing and harvesting period, sources in the Rural Development Ministry said. The letter had...

-The Indian Express   The way to Posco project remained blocked with irate villagers of Mathsahi and Balisahi of Nuagaon panchayat opposing work for the fourth day on Wednesday. Incidentally, these two villages are main entry points to Nuagaon and Dhinkia panchayats and the administration had planned to take up work in other hamlets after felling trees here. While the recent face-off between villagers and police turned Posco supporters into antagonists, the...