Comparisons 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 […]
India
Good 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.
Fighting corruption using right to information: Arvind Kejriwal’s talk
It 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.
Right to information call centre in Bihar: Video clip
India’s role in countries abroad is something that we do not get to hear much about. It’s role with neighbors is clearly known – but I did not realise that India had played a role in places like Hungary and Congo. A recent article in The Hindu by Jairam Ramesh quotes a president of Hungary saying: “in those months (in 1956), the Indian Embassy in Budapest became the Embassy of the Revolution”. That came as a major surprise to me. I was reading the autobiographical notes of J. K. Galbraith called Ambassador Diaries that he maintained during his stay in […]
India’s role in Hungary, Congo, etc.
Here is your window to some of the best movies in the world, in my perspective. The following ratings are not by a trained movie critic, but by as passionate movie buff. So, if the ratings reflect anything, it reflects my taste. In general, I tend to like movies with good stories, powerful but subtle dialog, good music that’s not conspicuous, acting that’s not overly dramatic and stories that “could have been true”. I thought of putting it together both as record for my own sake and to share a list of movies with those who may share my taste. […]
List of great movies: India and international (brief reviews)
Political parties do things in style, and the TN Budget of 2007-2008 was no exception. Among other things, I found the last line of the budget speech interesting. Along with the date in English (23 March 2007), it had a tamil date as Panguni-9, Thiruvalluvar Aandu 2038. Till I read this I did not realise that there is something called Thiruvalluvar aandu – a good discovery from this year’s budget!
TN Budget trivia
Tamil Nadu has many significan policy success stories – in part due to getting the budgetary priorities right We are living in a time when positive media coverage of budget is restricted either to tax cuts or for reducing fiscal deficits. Despite the fact that enormous proportion of India’s GDP is spent by the government, media hardly discusses what governments spend on, and how. State government budgets are crucial to national development given that states are in charge of important areas such as education, health, water, etc. Given my interests, I have closely followed education, health, child care and a few […]
A chirpy note on TN budget 2007-08
The Tamil Nadu State budget 2007-2008 was presented on 23 March 2007 by Finance Minister Prof. K. Anbazhagan. This page has automatically generated news and analysis on the budget The budget related documents can be found in the website of Tamil Nadu government here. The budget papers for this year have not been updated as yet in this site, but the budget speech can be read here. The webcast of the speech is available here. The speech is conveiniently divided by sections, so incase you are interested in just one section (e.g. Tax, education, social welwafe, etc.), you can easily […]
Tamil Nadu state budget 2007-08: News & Analysis
The following are automatically generated news on state budgets covering many states To check out budget news from South Indian states, click here.
News & Analysis of State budgets 2007-08
The finance minister of Karnataka – Yediyurappa just presented the state budget highlighting the ban of arrack and lottery. For news and analysis on the budget, read on. Also, see my post on why there is curiously high interest in Karnataka budget. The following are automatically generated from Google News by carefully selected search terms. Most of these should be relevant, but there is a chance that some are not. For 2007-08 Budget click here. Also available is the medium term fiscal plan.
Karnataka budget 2007-08: News and Analysis
Search debates, policies, laws, parliamentary questions, and other issues relating to policy, politics law and governance in India. Covers Indian Parliament and State Assemblies For those with an interest in policy issues, following what happens in the parliament and the legislative assemblies can be crucial. All state governments and the Government of India have reasonably information websites these days. But it is a little painful if we have to look for a new education initiative in over 50 websites one by one. On the other hand a generic search in Google or other search engines will give a lot of […]
Indian Parliament & Legislative Assemblies search engine
13 Search the debates that helped frame India's far sighted Constitution
Search engine for Constituent Assembly debates in India
This page gives links to websites of State and Union governments in India with detailed information on budgets. Brief descriptions of sites are given. Despite the importance of budgets, very little information is available about them in the Indian context. The Union budget gets a national coverage and information is widely available. Much less is know about state budgets. The good news is that most state governments now have websites, often with extensive information. As a first step, I’ve put together information on all of them in one place. I updated this page to reflect the websites in February 2011. […]
Union and State budgets, India: Websites, documents, tools
The last few years have seen some dazzling movies that have boldly departed from the mainstream. A movie historian in Tamil Nadu once said (perhaps Randor Guy) that most movies in the language (and I am sure in Hindi as well) revolved around 8 basic plots. These new movies have a bold new plot – but that’s not all. Many of these have given up a formulaic approach of making commercial movies in India (atleast in Hindi and Tamil): a little glamour, some songs, some dancing, some comedy (even if it’s totally unrelated), a macho hero, sexy heroine, fights (called […]
Moving beyond the formula: Bold new Indian movies
Planning commission forgets children in its approach paper for the eleventh five-year plan The approach paper for the eleventh plan released by the Planning Commission has forgotten the children under six. A dream of development that does not include children is a futile dream. Childhood is the foundation of physical, mental and emotional wellbeing of people. The first six years of life is a period of dramatic growth and development. Apart from rapid physical and mental growth, children do the difficult task of learning languages, an assortment of physical skills, values and other things required to lead a full […]
Screaming for attention
In this note I have tried to put together some lessons that I learned from the Right to Food Campaign. I have drawn these notes from the activities of the campaign, the discussions we have had, the materials we have prepared for the public interest litigation and for the campaign. The campaign deals with questions that are similar to what we are going to deal with in the seminar viz. ensuring a hunger free India. I have drawn extensively on the materials we have prepared in the campaign, and specially on discussions with the ‘support group’. I would like to […]
Notes from the Right to Food Campaign
I wish to share with you a message of hope in this anniversary issue of Humanscape. As a recent entrant in the world of social action, I have been asking myself whether people’s campaigns are effective at all. Are they capable of bringing the concerns of people into the political centre-stage and affect the way government works? In two short years of my association with such campaigns, I have gained hope that a well-organised and sustained campaign can indeed bring meaningful changes to the lives of poor and marginalized people. I have drawn inspiration from campaigns on several issues; but […]
A Message of Hope
“God bless mummy, god bless daddy, god bless teacher who will teach us, and make them happy”. Standing in a perfect circle, at 10 am sharp, children chanted this prayer to start their activities of the day at the anganwadi. In the next five hours they would learn through play, have one nourishing meal, take a noon nap, and return home to their mother, who had the comfort of having her child taken care of for a significant part of her working day. Immediately after the prayer was a round of physical exercises, accompanied by poems created for the purpose. […]
An anganwadi in Tamil Nadu
I wrote this article in 2003 when mid-day meal scheme was resisted by most states despite a direction from the Supreme Court of India directing them to implement it. Sir Humphrey of ‘Yes Minister’ fame would be proud of our babus. Once they are determined to do or not to do something, they act creatively steer history their way. Recently, the Supreme Court ordered all the states and UTs to implement the mid-day meal scheme in all government and government aided primary schools and thus unleashed their creativity again. Saying, “Yes your honour” on one hand most States continue to […]
Yes your honour
This article was written after a visit to Karnataka with Muthappa and Saraswathi. The mid-day meal scheme had recently started in the State following Supreme Court directions and public pressure. I wrote this article with Jean Dreze and it was published in Hindustan Times. Ten months have passed since the Supreme Court directed the state governments to introduce cooked mid-day meals in all primary schools within six months. Some state governments are implementing the order, but many others are trying to buy time, plead for central funding, or even reverse the order. The court seems determined to enforce the order, […]