The IMF’s April 2025 Regional Economic Outlook for Sub-Saharan Africa presents a clear warning: regional growth is slowing, debt pressures are mounting, and donor assistance is declining. Yet the report outlines critical opportunities particularly in domestic revenue mobilization, structural reform, and private sector activation that can shape a more resilient …
The government of India has for long considered watersheds as catalysts for development activities in rain-fed areas. In 1994, it developed guidelines for implementation of watershed programmes. These were subsequently revised, in 2001, by the department of land resources of the ministry of rural development and circulated as guidelines for …
What makes globalisation undesirable? Globalisation can have positive benefits but if not managed well, it can also be very inequitable. It is exactly because it has not been managed well on several instances that many countries have not benefited, and have even suffered. Some may argue that the process is …
The World Social Forum (WSF) concluded in Mumbai. Then began the World Economic Forum in Davos. A little before these, a glitzy automobile fair in Delhi. One after the other, loud and strident images. But even as an intensely stimulating energy of dissent swelled at WSF, I kept feeling the …
There is never any end to learning. And so, surprises. We have learnt, over 20 years, that environmental governance in India is lackadaisical. Still, the extent of irresponsibility never fails to surprise. Some months ago we did a study on pesticides in bottled water. We were really looking at pesticides …
Harvests in different parts of the South have been a mixed blessing this year. In late November, the Argentinian peso suffered its biggest decline against the dollar in six months as the end of the harvest season reduced the flow of dollars into the country. In September, the country's trade …
at long last a positive note has been struck to end the Union government's ambiguity towards non-governmental organisations (ngos). The Planning Commission has circulated a draft of a clear-cut policy on the voluntary sector, the lack of which has irked the latter a great deal. ngo representatives involved in the …
a model is being set up to reform agricultural marketing across India. It would enable farmers to sell their produce at the most remunerative prices. In order to effect this change, the Union ministry of agriculture has prepared a draft legislation on which the state governments' own crop marketing development …
A CONCEPT that did not click in the hills of the Northeast has now been prescribed for the plains of the region. On December 1, the Union government inked a purportedly historic tripartite pact with the Bodo Liberation Tigers and the Assam government to create an autonomous, self-governing Bodoland Territorial …
Bhopal is the name of the place where, once upon a time, a vast plume of poison burst upon 5,20,000 people. But that happened 20 years ago. Now Bhopal is a metaphor for disaster, industrial and human. It has been the object of much speculation and typically endless litigation. A …
As the Bhopal tragedy enters its twentieth year, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has identified the country's newest disease: the Bhopal Gas Disease. Down To Earth has exclusive access to an unpublished ICMR document which defines the disease as "a condition of ill-health due to exposure to Bhopal's …
Asha, 24, visits the Bhopal Memorial Trust Hospital once every 2 days. She has a hole in her heart. But the hospital won't operate her, because she has overshot the hospital quota of Rs two lakh per victim. She cannot get herself operated privately. "I have spent the compensation of …
Is it memory that keeps Bhopal alive in our conscience? In 1984, I, Richard, was in class nine. My colleague, Surya, was in class two. Twenty years later, we were on our way to Bhopal, for a 20th
A MULTI-BILLION-DOLLAR transnational corporation has had to blink first in an eyeball-to-eyeball dispute with an obscure panchayat of Kerala. On November 17, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Limited (HCBPL)
CONTITUTIONAL issues underlie the deadlock that persists in Plachimada. More specifically, the entire debate is centred on the rights of panchayats. Not only is the Perumatty Grama Panchayat pitted against the Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Private Limited (HCBPL) and the Kerala government, it is ironically having to take on the local …
Forty year old Ganga stays in a slum close to the derelict Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) plant in Bhopal. She came to the city long after the gas leak. But Ganga shows symptoms associated with victims of the leak, nevertheless
Kerala, along with Gujarat and Maharashtra, are the three Indian states selected for a programme called the Commonwealth local government good practice scheme. The scheme is to be implemented by the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (cglf), a London-based institution founded in 1995 as a focus for action on local democracy …
a myth actively perpetuated by traditional politicians and a supportive bureauracy is that panchayat bodies are India's lowest ranked implementing agency for government programmes. Thus their status as an institution of self-government, as designated in the Indian c onstitution, remains a distant dream. This is why, when the Plachimada panchayat …
Reportedly, bjp senior leader Arun Jaitley has contemptuously labelled Digvijay Singh's Madhya Pradesh government as " ngo -style". Why? Because it spends more on social development - education and health - and not on roads or electricity. I am not defending the potholes made famous by politicians and media in …
