The Union ministry of rural development is thinking of referring the two recent MGNREGS-related murders in Jharkhand to the CBI after arriving at the conclusion that the job scheme has been taken over by a contractors’ mafia in the state. According to a highly placed source in the ministry, the Centre was now convinced that the Jharkhand government was not taking adequate measures to undo the wrongs in the scheme. “Since...

Going with its slogan: “Our money our right,” the Shillong declaration of the 3rd National Right to Information Convention today resolved that the Central Government must subject “all public expenditure under social audit.” It was by far one of the most crucial of the other 11 resolutions passed in the Shillong Declaration and was only included after the strong insistence of RTI Activist, Aruna Roy. She was amply supported by some...

Two villages in Uttar Pradesh have reversed the trend of migration by digging six kilometres of channels to bring water to drought-hit farms Call it the fallout of seven years of severe drought or government inaction, a silent revolution is brewing in Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh. Communities are getting united and digging channels to bring water from government canals to their fields. Some are volunteering labour, while those belonging to...

Fukushima has become part of the local lexicon at Jaitapur. As news of the apocalypse-like situation in Japan reaches the far corners of villages in and around the area, residents have increased their agitation against the proposed 9,900 mw nuclear power plant. Jaitapur area falls in the seismic zone 3 category, and data from the Geological Survey of India shows that between 1985 and 2005, there were 92 earthquakes. The biggest earthquake...

A few helpless spectators of injustice dived into past pain and picked out poignant personal tales at a national convention to understand if the Right to Information Act can help them turn back and undo a few wrongs. V. Narzary was one such youth who came all the way from the Bodo belt in Assam to ask experts whether he could revisit, through the RTI Act, a case where the army...