I and two colleagues, working for Public Cause Research Foundation (PCRF), a Delhi-based NGO, set ourselves on a search for a well-functioning gram sabha in late 2008. By the standards of ‘local self-governance’, a gram sabha should meet regularly and collectively decide all issues of development and social justice in its jurisdiction, leaving the elected and unelected panch
High industrial activity in India during 1994-2007 led to an increase of 58 percent in greenhouse gas emissions, says a report by the environment ministry. According to the report titled - India’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions 2007 “the total annual greenhouse gas emissions grew from 1.25 billion tonnes in 1994 to 1.90 billion tonnes in 2007.” Two countries - USA an
The centre and states usually have a very stormy relationship. I would want to draw attention of the readers of Governance Now to the different aspects of this relationship. We live in a federal structure of government with three levels; centre, state and the panchayati raj institutions. There are a number of legislative subjects that either belong exclusively to the centre or to the states, or
It was a bittersweet moment for the media recently when the Supreme Court upheld the Delhi High Court judgement and awarded life imprisonment to Manu Sharma in the Jessica Lal murder case. The case reached the Supreme Court and its logical conclusion only after the Delhi High Court fast-tracked it following uproar in the media. While pronouncing its verdict, though, the Supreme Court cautioned
April, 2010 - temperatures soared to a new high as the month became the warmest ever in recorded history. A study released by the America’s climate agency the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said, “The combined April global land and ocean average surface temperature was the warmest on record at 14.5°C, which is 0.76°C above the 20th century average of
The more procedures, the less justice. Paraphrasing Cicero only states the fact, though, and does not even begin to unravel the sinister politics at the heart of the matter. The curious case of Mohammad Afzal, or Afzal Guru, is merely cloaked in procedures devised by ingenious governments in India to legitimise their designs to delay, thwart or subvert justice whenever they so choose. So Afzal
Are the residents of Delhi drink contaminated water? Yes, says a new survey. Contamination level is high even in potable water in Delhi, thus rendered unsafe for drinking, says the report released by Delhi based NGO Hazards Centre, Delhi. The study says that 38 samples had faecal contamination, 11 samples had iron above the permissible limit and 17 samples had arsenic above permissible limits.
To be fair to Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, who handles the home portfolio, a decision on the mercy petition of Afzal Guru was destined from the start and has been nothing but a political question requiring the attention of her ‘elders’. She doesn’t have any significant role to play here except to do her elders’ bidding. So her reported ignorance of the um
The entire process related to commonwealth games has been marred with secrecy and unavailability of information, says the Housing and Land Rights Network in its latest report. It further says that India’s decision to bid for the games was not even discussed in the parliament. From the time of the bid to the allocation of budget, it seems lack of public participation and government
A few hours after Indian newspapers (and the rare television channel which isn’t obsessed with TRPs!) got excited over the new, incredibly gifted, IIT-trained dean of Harvard Business School, the Financial Times posted a sobering thought. “Amidst the euphoria, Indians generally celebrate the success of their overseas compatriots on the global stage, often equating the
Just about everybody in Himachal Pradesh seems to have heard of Dasmal, a small village 170 km from the state capital and 10 km off the Shimla-Manali highway in Hamirpur district. It has neither inspired Rudyard Kipling, who came visiting the state every year during his stay in India, nor is it home to Ruskin Bond. Tucked away behind tall deodar trees in the foothills of the Himalayas, it is no
Nickeee Cleggg, Nickeee Cleggg, what a wonderful, wonderful name (sung to the tune of Nicky Arnstein from My Fair Lady). Forever written into in history for having changed it so dramatically and finally drawn the curtain on democracy’s mother parliament and her affection for bi-partisan sitting arrangements. They say it is rather like the first kiss, the first olive in the jar or k
None of the 423 class-I cities in India is “healthy and clean” in terms of various sanitation parameters, and 99 per cent of them suffer from poor or absent community toilets and safe management of human excreta, says a government-commissioned study published on Monday. Over 47 per cent of all cities ranked are found to be “needing immediate remedial action” in t
“The one who loves my Gujarat is my soul. The one who loves my India is my God.” With these lines from his poem Narendra Modi signed off his blog of March 28, a day after he faced a 10-hour interrogation from the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT). It was a characteristic Modi intervention. He ably deflected the attention to Amitabh Bachchan an
I had hardly got admitted to the Master’s degree programme in English, when the campus got abuzz with the news of the semester system being introduced in Jammu University. There were many apprehensions in the minds of students, particularly the student leaders. And these often took the form of agitations and dharnas, disrupting the even tenor of the academic activities on the campus. Fina
India which was ranked at 113 in the 2008 United Nations e-government survey has fallen by six positions this year. The 2010 survey which was released on Friday by department of economic and social affairs of the United Nations (UN) ranks India at 119. The report titled leveraging e-government at a time of financial and economic crisis as released by the UN. Republic of Korea takes the
In a new survey done on the different government agencies around the world, the Backward Classes Bureau of India has emerged as “the most inappropriate government agencies” in a listing prepared by the US-based Foreign Policy journal website. Its study says that the name of the bureau “is a rather blunt designation for lower-caste Hindus and other disadvantaged religio
Hillary Rodham Clinton could not contain her apparent anger when she spoke out against Pakistan in a lexicon only the secretary of state of the world’s lone super power could dare to use to chilling effect. In an interview to a news channel Clinton threatened Pakistan of dire consequences had the Times Square bomb scare been more than just that. "We`ve made it very clear that if, hea
Surendra Mohan is perhaps is the only surviving socialist who can claim to have closely worked with Ram Manohar Lohia, imbibed and understood his leader’s anti-Congressism credo and its context. In a free-wheeling interview with Ajay Singh at his east Delhi home on a Sunday evening, he talks about Sonia Gandhi and the UPA’s “socialist and egalitarian&rdquo
A friend of mine once tried to work out the differences between the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and the Congress party president, Sonia Gandhi. He said that it was more than a question of persona. A persona stands between mask and face, individual and role. Sonia Gandhi, he claimed, was an ecology. She was also a translator. If Singh represented government and economics, Sonia stood for gov
