Noted development economist and Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen talks about how government funds find their way into insurgent hands, and why the government is unable to check this. There are a number of reports that suggest that development funds are landing in the wrong hands. What are the various aspects of fund diversions? It's a well-reported fact that public money is finding its way into the hands of extremists. There...

In the long speeches made at the opening ceremony of the CW games, every important individual, department or institution that made a contribution, was acknowledged. Did anyone hear a word about the workers who made these world-class games possible? Maybe it was just a slip or maybe it was not considered necessary. Anyway, the workers were not there for the speeches, having been driven out of the capital just a...

The untiring champion of the downtrodden and civil rights and former IAS official (1956 batch) of the Andhra Pradesh cadre S R Sankaran passed away on Thursday in Hyderabad. A bachelor, Sanakaran was 76. Though retired in 1992, he never called off his mission to defend the rights of the marginalised sections. Be it government, Maoists, civil rights organisations, Supreme Court or Planning Commission of India, his services were most sought...

After taking on Suresh Kalmadi and Co on the Commonwealth Games, Rajya Sabha MP and former panchayati raj minister Mani Shankar Aiyar has now trained his guns on the UPA government and the Planning Commission for bureaucratising all flagship programmes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the National Rural Health Mission. In a free-wheeling interview with ET, Mr Aiyar said instead of relying on panchayati raj institutions for better...

The minister for environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh’s order stopping Vedanta Aluminum Ltd and the Orissa Mining Corporation from mining bauxite in the Niyamgiri Hills to feed the company’s adjacent Lanjigarh aluminum refinery plant located in one of the country’s poorest districts in the name of tribal interest tends to miss the wood for the trees. It is based on the report of a four-member expert group under N C...