-Down to Earth The administration, however, has not compensated other Mitanins’ work adequately and has thus been misusing their sense of social commitment 50-year-old Saraswati Kaushik’s day starts at 5 am. After preparing food for the family and an hour or two of farm work, she goes for home visits in her ‘para’ (locality) to check on pregnant mothers, infants, kids below five years of age, elderly people in need of treatment...

-Behanbox.com New Delhi: Usha Sahu, 45, a Mitanin trainer from Bemetara district in central Chhattisgarh was in for a  shock when she checked her bank account in October. The bank had deducted Rs 2000 from the 4,000 rupees that she received as a special incentive for the Covid-19 duties for the months of April to September, 2021. “When the other Mitanins in the block started complaining about the deduction, I checked my...

-Down to Earth The primary health centre (PHC) at Ajara block in Maharashtra's Kolhapur district would handle just eight childbirth cases a year till 2011. Today, it handles over 125 such cases in a year. The health centre became efficient because of a Central government scheme that empowers communities to monitor public health services. In 2010, the residents participated in a jan sunwai (public hearing) session, in which they told senior...

-The Hindustan Times   Rambai, a lean and sprightly 34-year-old, has never been the quiet sort. So when her neighbours at the Rokra hamlet were asked to choose a community health worker (CHW) — called Mitanin (friend) in Chhattisgarh — they knew that Rambai would be an ideal candidate. “We selected her because she could communicate well and interact with officials with ease, even though she has studied till Class 5,” said...

Mai-baap. That is how poor Indians referred to the state ever since independence. The benign provider looking after its subjects like the rajas of yore. But, today, the people have started demanding accountability from the mai-baap. Why? Because a clutch of new laws, like the Right To Information Act (RTI) and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), are moving the government's developmental promises beyond "the realm of a privilege that...