Order of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of News item titled "DDA ignores directions to remove official constructions on floodplain builds more" appearing in The Hindu dated 18.04.2024 and Other dated 21/01/2025. The original application was registered suo motu based on the news item titled "DDA ignores directions …
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005 which is a rights-based flagship scheme of the Government of India with effect from 2 February, 2006, guarantees at least 100 days of wage employment in a given financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do …
Examining the Marathi translation of The Communist Manifesto published in 1931 and situating it in the socio-historical context of workers’ movements in Mumbai in the 1920s and 1930s, this paper argues that the so-called subordinated classes engaged with it and created a workers’ public that was in conversation with the …
The Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC), 2011 is being carried out by the Government of India to generate information on a large number of social and economic indicators relating to households across the country.
IT SEEMS elections for local bodies in Andhra Pradesh will not be held until contentions over reservation quotas are resolved. A day after the State Election Commission (SEC) announced holding panchayat polls by the second week of July, a division bench of Andhra Pradesh High Court stayed the elections. It …
Two approaches are available for identifying households below the poverty line – the score-based ranking approach proposed by the N C Saxena Committee and an alternative proposed by Jean Dreze and Reetika Khera. Comparing these approaches for Udupi district in Karnataka shows that the former does a fair job of …
In a state such as Odisha in which Dalit and tribal groups comprise about 40 per cent of the total population, the issue of ‘access’ to land and resources has apparently been central to all conflicts. For traditional communities, ‘access’ is directly linked to civilizational paradigms and cultural ethos, which …
This paper aims to understand the implications of implementing the Saxena Committee’s recommendations in respect of identifying the poor in India. Relative to the one currently in use, the application of the proposed methodology appears to be more beneficial in general to social groups such as scheduled tribes, most backward …
This paper attempts to review the recent performance of the economy and lists the priorities and challenges for the Twelfth Plan. The Indian economy will enter the Twelfth Plan period in an environment of great promise, but the next five years will also be a period of major challenges. The …
A survey by the Indian government in 2002 to determine households below poverty line (BPL) left out many poor families. Nearly a decade later, the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) is trying to set the wrong right. But it is unable to decide on the criteria for identifying poor …
A survey by the Indian government in 2002 to determine households below poverty line (BPL) left out many poor families. Nearly a decade later, the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) is trying to set the wrong right. But it is unable to decide on the criteria for identifying poor …
This paper attempts to measure the effect of castereservation policies on the provision of public goods and services in gram panchayats in Andhra Pradesh using data from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. The investigation finds that the effect of reservation varies tremendously in different social, political, and institutional contexts, …
This article suggests how the Gandhi–Ambedkar–Narayanaguru–Marx visions can be synthesised in support of the movement for the liberation and empowerment of India’s dalits. It brings out the beginnings and evolution of Gandhji’s sensitivity and opposition to ‘untouchability’. His perception of ‘untouchability’ was initially limited to ‘touch-me-not-ism’, but deepened after his …
This paper presents the first results of a study conducted on subjective expectations that parents have about the costs and returns to education. This is done by using a detailed child-level dataset from the three villages of Dokur (Mahbubnagar district, Andhra Pradesh), Kalman and Shirapur (Sholapur district, Maharashtra). The perceived …
In the factors that affect income and poverty outcomes, there are some features unique to India. Caste, ethnicity, religion and even regional origins all influence income outcomes. Therefore while examining individual poverty, the influence of social belongings on the level and the nature of access to economic endowments and the …
The influence of John Locke’s theory of property on the policies governing India’s landscape is examined in this paper. Locke’s concept of wasteland, as opposed to value-producing land, constituted a founding binary opposition that constructed how landscapes were categorised. The period under study covers the Permanent Settlement (1793), the Ryotwari …
Maoist violence is the consequence of increased atrocities against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (especially in the central tribal belt) and widespread tribal unrest due to commercialisation of forest resources. Ignoring such analysis and acting primarily on reports by the Intelligence Bureau, which is not equipped to study the multiple …
This report describes the findings of a rapid survey conducted by Centre for Environment and Food Security (CEFS) to evaluate the performance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in the 50 poorest dalit villages of Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh. The rapid survey was conducted in …
This paper attempts a decomposition analysis of Poverty scenario in UP during 1993-94 and 2004-05. It was found that poverty has decreased but inequality has increased between these years. The main problems in the state are stark inter-region and intra-region differences. A positive observation is that the poorest region in …