All topics
Academic
Social movements
Right to Food Campaign Archive
I was involved with India’s Right to Food Campaign since its inception in the early 2000s. These articles offer brief reflections on the campaign and my involvement in it. To know more about the campaign, please visit the campaign website (www.righttofoodindia.org).
-
Rights based approach to development: Lessons from India’s Right to Food Campaign
Posted on September 28, 2011 | No CommentsIn April 2001 People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) approached the Supreme Court of India arguing that the government has a duty to provide greater relief in the context of mass hunger. The litigation has now become the best known precedent on the right to food internationally. This paper reviews the litigation with a view to understand various strategies used by the litigants to create and enforce far-reaching entitlements in a near legal vacuum on the right to food. This is followed by a discussion on the lessons from this case for rights based approach to development at large. Citation:... -
Corruption in the PDS & will coupons or cash transfer work better?
Posted on May 26, 2011 | 2 CommentsThis is a part of a series of articles on the proposal to shift from PDS to coupons or cash transfers. To see the introduction, click here . The level of corruption in the public distribution system has been one of the rallying points in the cry for change. The following are some of the corruption related arguments for change: There is large scale corruption in the system It is undeniable that there is a lot of corruption in the PDS, and something needs to be done about it. In arguing that we should shift from PDS to coupons or... -
Jharkhand police: Enquiry or cover-up in Lalit Mehta’s murder case?
Posted on June 17, 2008 | 1 CommentA report by the Dy. Commissioner, and SP Palamu indicates that police in Palamu is not serious about pursuing Lalit Metha’s murderers One of our colleagues, Lalit Mehta, was brutally murdered in Palamu, Jharkahand recently. A sloppy report has prepared by the Deputy Commissioner and the SP, Palamu indicates that the Jharkhand police is either insincere in pursuing the murderers or actively protecting them. Lalit was in the process of organising a survey on NREGA along with Jean Dreze and a band of volunteers. Instead of pursuing the murders, the report casts aspersions on the survey team and even goes... -
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... -
Murder of Lalit Kumar, NREGA activist in Palamu, Jharkhand
Posted on May 23, 2008 | 2 CommentsIn one of the worst cases of attack on an NREGA activist, Lalit Kumar was murdered this week in Palamu Right from the word go combating corruption in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has been a major agenda of activists of the Right to Food Campaign. Needless to say, it brings activists into conflict with the vested interests that are deeply rooted in India today. This week in Palamu, a young and committed activist – Lalit Kumar – was murdered, perhaps a result of his actions to secure the poorest of people their rights. I am reproducing an... -
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... -
Being young in a social movement
Posted on July 3, 2007 | 1 CommentYoung people contribute a lot in social movements…but what is their status in them? It looks like there is a large attrition of young people from social movements in India, and perhaps elsewhere. I guess a part of it must be for financial and professional reasons. But that is clearly not the whole story. Social movements are by nature a place for discussion and rebellion – and tend to produce a lot of misgivings within. I was with a group of wonderful people in the Right to Food Campaign. I continue to cherish my association with most of them. But... -
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... -
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... -
Documentary on MKSS and right to information campaign
Posted on February 7, 2007 | No CommentsThis documentary by Jan Madhyam Productions gives a very good introduction to the right to information campaign in India and on how RTI is used with social audits to combat corruption. In case you have trouble viewing it, please go to the permanalink by clicking the title above, or here http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3238128636848285898
