The first five years in the life of most laws is usually a tumultuous period when it moves towards maturity through its application and implementation, and its limits are tested and defined through judicial interpretation. How has the RTI Act fared, where is it now, and what about the future? Danubhai G. Vasava, a poor tribal from Sangroad in Umarpada block of Gujarat’s Surat district, attended a Right to Information (RTI)...
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Forever Stuck in a Cycle of Debt and Death by Uddalak Mukherjee
According to the National Crime Records Bureau, since 2003, one Indian farmer has committed suicide every 30 minutes. In 2008, 16,196 farmers took their own lives, bringing the total number of farmer suicides in India between 1997 and 2008 to 199,132. (Significantly, P. Sainath is of the opinion that like all government data, these figures too are unreliable. For when women farmhands kill themselves, their deaths are not enlisted as...
More »No guarantees anymore by Sowmya Sivakumar
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...
More »The mass job guarantee by Aruna Roy & Nachiket Udupa
The sea change that India’s national scheme for rural employment guarantee has accomplished is hard to fathom, its vastness touching the lives or more than 100 million people. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 (NREGA, subsequently renamed after Mahatma Gandhi, or MGNREGA) was a landmark in Indian legislation. Under the act, as of April 2008, for the first time in India’s history, all rural citizens have a legal right...
More »Developmental economist Arjun Sengupta passes away
Arjun Kumar Sengupta, a developmental economist and Member of the Rajya Sabha, passed away on Sunday evening. He was 73 and is survived by his wife Jayshree Sengupta and daughter Madhura Sengupta who teaches in Canada. He has had a multi-faceted career as a academician, economic policy administrator and a Parliamentarian. “I am deeply grieved to learn about the sad demise of Dr Arjun Kumar Sengupta, Member of Parliament. He will...
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