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Right to food Archive
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NREGA for the disabled
Posted on August 15, 2009 | No CommentsNREGA presents an unprecedented opportunity for disabled persons across India to earn a living and to showcase their talents. But as things stand, NREGA is not designed for disabled people to participate in it, but we can change it all with some tweaking. -
Politics, technology & accountability II
Posted on July 27, 2009 | No Comments“To be ruled is to be kept an eye on, inspected, spied on, regulated, indoctrinated, sermonized, listed and checked off, estimated, appraised, censured, ordered about…to be ruled is at every operation, transaction, movement, to be noted, registered, counted, priced, admonished, prevented, reformed, redressed, corrected”. Proudhon quoted by James Scott in Seeing like a state. The power of information is often used by those in powerful positions to control others. The right to information movement inverts this principle and turns the gaze on those in positions of power by making their actions visible and thus amenable to democratic control. Sharing information... -
Rights based approach & the Human development approach: Exploring linkages
Posted on June 1, 2008 | No CommentsThe rights based approach to development and the human development perspective have both become popular in the recent past. Despite a similar philosophical base, they were both developed in distinctly different communities and so they have different strengths and weaknesses in practice. One of the major strengths of the human development approach is that it has a lot of statistical techniques that have been developed by economists involved with the approach over many years. The rights approach always had a legal-political leaning and so it did not have the same kind of statistical tools for planning and for assessment. Rights... -
Food policy and social movements: Reflection on India’s Right to Food Campaign
Posted on December 1, 2007 | No CommentsThis paper was written for a book of case studies for a course on food policy in developing countries, and was meant for students interested in a career in food policy administration. Executive summary The Right to Food Campaign in India began in 2001. It was a time of absurd paradox. Even as the foodgrain stocks held by the government rose to 50 million metric tons, several parts of the country were reeling from a third consecutive year of drought. The threat of severe hunger loomed large, yet efforts to address this threat were insufficient. In April 2001 the People’s... -
America’s New Deal & India’s Employment Guarantee Act
Posted on June 25, 2007 | 2 CommentsComparisons are often drawn between the New Deal in USA and the Employment Guarantee Act in India (NREGA). One programme of new deal comes close to NREGA – Civilian Conservation Corps The Government of India passed the all-important National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in 2005 (for an intro click here). Whenever I mention it to my friends in USA the first question they ask me is, “is this like the new-deal”. The new deal has many similarities with NREGA, but is a much wider concept. NREGA is a programme dealing exclusively with labour-intensive, unskilled work. Employment programmes under new... -
Fighting corruption using right to information: Arvind Kejriwal’s talk
Posted on May 19, 2007 | 1 CommentGood introductory video on using right to information to combat corruption by Arvind Kejriwal Arvind Kejriwal has been at the heart of an inspiring campaign to combat corruption by using the right to information. He spearheaded a campaign in Delhi along with many other groups that popularised the use of right to information. Arvind got the Magasassay for his work. The videos below contain a talk he gave on using RTI, which I think is a good introductory material for people with an interest on how it could be used, and what it means. -
Right to information call centre in Bihar: Video clip
Posted on May 19, 2007 | No CommentsIt looks like Government of Bihar has launched a Right to information call centre. Personally, I think this is a great idea, though I dont know how it works at this point. If found a video about it in You Tube that has been widely televised. This is a eight minute clip about that appeals to different groups of people to use it, and gives an idea about how it could be done. -
Food Politics by Marion Nestle: How industries influence eating
Posted on May 14, 2007 | No CommentsFood politics: how the food industry influences nutrition and health Rating: 5 out of 5 Author: Marion Nestle Year: 2002 Category: Nutrition, Political Economy, Agriculture Publisher: University of California Press Fascinating book on the politics of food in USA The book was motivated by the contradictions between nutrition policy and practice. The author argues that the basic nutrition advice has remained more or less constant for the last fifty years. She examines the role of food industry in the US in creating an environment conductive to over eating and poor nutritional practice. Overproduction, Competition & pressure to make people eat... -
Nancy Schepper-Huges’ graphic portrayal of hunger and violance in Brazil
Posted on February 25, 2007 | No CommentsDeath without weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil Rating: 4 out of 5 Author: Nancy Schepper-Huges Year: 1992 Category: Anthropology, hunger, violence, poverty Publisher: University of California Press Death without weeping is an ethnographic study of a town in North-Eastern Brazil. The theme of the book is hunger, child deaths and ‘every day violence’ in Brazil. The work is situated in a town she calls ‘Bom Jesus da mata’ in Pernambuco district of N.E. Brazil. The author visited the place first as a volunteer in 1964, and continued her association with the town ever since. After her training... -
Papers and Reports I was involved in
Posted on February 21, 2007 | No CommentsThe right to food has been my main academic preoccupation so far. The following are some of my pieces (many co-authored) on various themes surrounding the issue. Citizens’ Initiative for the Rights of Children Under Six. 2006. Focus on children under six. Delhi: Circus. This report looks at the status of children under six, and the status of India’s only major child care system – Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS). The report is based on a six-state survey and numerous other materials. The focus report is a joint work by a large team. My contribution was on the Tamil Nadu...
