Smart card technology can be used to streamline India's unwieldy PDS. But it is yet to prove itself under real world challenges. Smart cards have become the latest buzzword to remedy India's public distribution system (PDS) — one of the largest food grain delivery networks in the world with more than 500,000 ‘ration' shops. Electronic voting machines have streamlined Indian elections. Credit cards, which can be swiped for payment at any...

The Government has included small and marginal farmers under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA by an amendment made in para 1(iv) of the list of permissible activities provided in Schedule-I of the Act. The amendment made is as follows: “Provision of irrigation facility, horticulture plantation and land development facilities to land owned by households belonging to the Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes or below poverty line families or to beneficiaries of land...

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan wants it to be the new Singapore. State officials call it Urjanchal, land of energy. For sociologist Sakarama Somayaji, the enduring image from India’s emerging energy wonderland in Singrauli is the women who sell baskets of stones on the roadside. Individually or in groups, the women break stones, and sell them to passing trucks for R80-R90 a basket, a day’s labour. The women are...

The Environment Ministry's clearance of projects such as Posco, Jaitapur and Lavasa will cause havoc in our gravely endangered environment. EVEN the worst pessimist could not have imagined that the January 31 order of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) approving the South Korean-origin company Posco's steel project in Orissa would be as bad as it actually is. Construction of the Rs.54,000-crore steel plant, its captive power unit and private...

The Adivasi Adhikar Rashtriya Manch (AARM) has urged Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to ensure that the allocation for the Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) in this year’s budget is increased to 8.4 per cent, in keeping with the strength of the tribals in the country. They stressed that the shortfall on this account was over Rs 27,000 crores in the last two years. Members of the AARM, which works among tribal...