A six-phased Assembly elections in West Bengal, a two stage poll in Assam and a single day poll in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry were today announced by the Election Commission, setting in motion the largest such exercise after 2009 Lok Sabha polls. With parts of the state affected by Maoists activities, West Bengal will have elections in six phases on April 18, 23, 27, May 3, 7 and 10,...
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Ready for guillotining? by Richard Mahapatra
How transparent and participatory is Pranab Babu’s budget For six months it evolves under a veil of secrecy. The Cabinet gets to see it just a few hours before it is tabled in the Lok Sabha. Such is the covert nature of the Union budget that accounts for about 50 per cent of all budgets in the country. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee wants to make the budget what such a public affair...
More »Kind to cash by Richard Mahapatra
The government has a plan to reach welfare to the poor without wasting money. It wants to put hard cash in their hands instead of spending on welfare programmes. To begin with, it wants to end the public distribution system of food grain and give money directly to the people. Its logic: the new system of cash transfer will plug leakages and save an enormous amount of money. But is it...
More »An aam aadmi sarkar fights the poor by Vidya Subrahmaniam
It is tragic that the same government that gives huge corporate concessions and loses money in corruption is fighting over minimum wages. As India's — and by some reckoning the world's — largest rights-based rural safety net programme completes five years, here is a reality check. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) has become the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). But in a monumental affront to the...
More »Too Much Goodwill by Pragya Singh
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...
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