In search of the missing
In the undivided Koraput district of Orissa, there exist 190 villages that have slowly been pushed off the map of India. Hurled by fast-track …
The panchayat outrage
It was a vote for self-governance, not self-determination. No panchayat election in the country ever created as much hype as that of Jammu and …
Forest war
Naxalism started as a movement against land alienation. Today it has become a popular movement against natural resource alienation, …
Back To Beginning
Afghanistan, the badland of international politics, faces its toughest challenge: life and peace. Two decades of war, six months of non-stop …
Rights without benefits
Over 1.3 million tribals and forest dwellers have got rights over the land they had been using for years under the Forest Rights Act. This can, …
At 25, Panchayati Raj has become a powerful development instrument
Panchayats have become a kind of systematic investment plan for political parties to deepen their influence
Blame it on the foreign hand
Centre's motive behind the unseen "foreign hand" theory is to polarise the development discourse
Second disempowerment
Tribals have lost their decision-making power twice; first to the state then to the Maoists
गरीबी और आतंकवाद
जम्मू एवं कश्मीर में आतंकवाद की समस्या के समाधान के लिए फौजी ताकत का इस्तेमाल समझदारी भरा कदम नहीं है
Boss, the real beehive!
Rahul Gandhi’s idea of governance needs fresh focus. How about more autonomy to nearly 240,000 panchayats?
The countdown begins
Irrespective of being left or right in orientation, the next elections will be about rural issues
'Thank You' : The expression of gratitude is now propaganda tool in an elected sphere
The Indian government thanking its chief executive for a decision which is a right of the citizen makes a point: The government and the prime …
Fifteenth Finance Commission: Over Rs. 4.36 lakh crore for local governments
Local governments will get special health grants
Sabhas we listen to
On the 30th year of Panchayati Raj, the rise of the Gram Sabha holds the hope of making local-government accountable
The national local elections
Bangladesh loses an opportunity to revive its most important local government—upazilla parishad—as competing national parties turn …
Betrayed
Nepal's forest bureaucracy prepares for the funeral of the much-hailed community forest management programme
Brazilian lessons for Modi
Dilma Rousseff's re-election as president is a lesson on facing development challenges in an unequal economy
Why the data block?
India does not know how many people are poor or who they are; no consumer expenditure survey has been done in the last decade. We also do not …
India’s homemakers being wooed by political parties is path-breaking
The socio-political message of parties promising cash value to homemakers is a recognition of women’s work in a typical male-dominated …
US elections 2020: Trumped by hunger
US presidential candidates aren’t known to talk hunger; but they do talk inequality. This year, the pandemic and racial polarisation made …
भारत में आधे बच्चे हैं गरीब
ये बच्चे मूलभूत मानव विकास की जरूरतों से वंचित हैं। यह सर्वेक्षण यह भी बताता है कि बच्चों को केंद्र में रखकर चलाए जा ...
Elected democracy: democratic enough?
Global trends reveal that people are no longer finding this popular governance mechanism effective
Consigned to flames
Central and state authorities fiddle while underground coalfields burn in Jharia in the state of Jharkhand
A state in chaos
The human cost of the cyclone in Orissa is very high. So is the cost of the damage to the environment. The failure of the state machinery in …