With nearly 60% of the country’s population unbanked and the government pledging to bring banking to the lowest stratum of society, the Indian Institute of Management, Indore (IIMI), has decided to do its bit on financial inclusion. For its annual management summit Ahvan, the institute has decided to unveil a programme called Samanvay, where IIMI students will help underprivileged people in and around the campus open bank accounts and get...

Ten bonded labourers from Orissa, including three women, were rescued from a hollow block unit in Tiruneermalai near Tambaram on Monday. Staff from the office of the Revenue Divisional Officer, Tambaram, rescued them with the help of two non-governmental organisations with police protection on Monday morning. They were brought to Tambaram and handed CERTificates identifying them as “victims of forced labour” that entitled them to government rehabilitation funds. They were also...

EVEN though the Right to Information Act guarantees citizens their right to know and expose corruption in government offices, increasing attacks on RTI activists have put this most important right in jeopardy. The RTI Act was enacted after a long struggle by civil rights organisations. However, those who dare question the ways of the powers that be and expose them are eliminated in cold-blooded murders. The manner in which Amit...

The 2010 Seeds Bill that has been introduced in Parliament does address some of the major concerns in the aborted 2004 version, but strangely a number of important correctives – on regulation, consistency and punishment – that had been incorporated in the 2008 version (which lapsed in 2009) have now been modified or dropped altogether. What forces are pushing the government to act against the interests of India’s farmers? The third...

For deliberate non-implementation of forest right, panchayat Acts The N.C. Saxena panel, which has asked the Centre not to clear Vedanta's bauxite mining project in Orissa, is scathing about the “collusion” of the State and district administrations, blaming them for deliberate non-implementation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA) and the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) in the region. These Acts insist that the consent of forest dwelling tribal communities...