The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which has revitalised the rural landscape across the country, stands diminished in the land of its birth, Rajasthan, hijacked and held to ransom by vested interests and stripped of its backbone of an open social audit. As the Andhra experience has shown, there is one ingredient that can bring back its vitality: institutionalising citizen audits. But, is the Rajasthan government up to...

Even as the state government mulls over the compulsory voting bill, farmers in the tribal Dahod district have decided to boycott the local elections over non-payment of wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). There are about 2,223 such farmers in Fatehpura taluka of Dahod district bordering Rajasthan, who have decided to abstain from voting. Incidentally, police investigation continues in the case in which sarpanchs are alleged to have...

Even as the state government mulls over the compulsory voting bill, farmers in the tribal Dahod district have decided to boycott the local elections over non-payment of wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). There are about 2,223 such farmers in Fatehpura taluka of Dahod district bordering Rajasthan, who have decided to abstain from voting. Incidentally, police investigation continues in the case in which sarpanchs are alleged to have...

Members of the National Advisory Council (NAC) Aruna Roy and Jean Dreze have accused the UPA government of being “increasingly anti-labour” in their assessement of the national rural employment guarantee programme, on its fifth anniversary. With support from several activists associated with the government’s flagship social sector scheme, they have alleged that the “contractor mafia”is increasingly dominating in the states, minimising the potential to create remunerative employment through the programme. According to...

In Vijaypura village, marginalised women, especially widows, have used the RTI tool to procure food grains under PDS and are living a healthy life. The movement, instigated by a young RTI activist, boasts of achieving the millennium goal of reducing hunger by half in the region. It was from the state of Rajasthan that the Right to Information (RTI) movement emerged as an idea that went on to capture national...