The national local elections

Bangladesh loses an opportunity to revive its most important local government—upazilla parishad—as competing national parties turn …

Centre-state collusion

Why political justice is ignored in countering Naxalism in Chhattisgarh

English distress

Language>> Litigation • Japan

Battle over paper

Newsprint>> Politics • Argentina

Brazilian lessons for Modi

Dilma Rousseff's re-election as president is a lesson on facing development challenges in an unequal economy

Millionaire mukhiyas

Money pumped in development schemes in Bihar is giving rise to a new breed of village heads, flush with money and flexing muscles

Time to reveal

Cabinet clears policy that makes it mandatory for departments to share data; civil society sceptical

A deal for votes

2013-14 might see expansion or monetisation of development schemes in run-up to election

Confusion over RTI persists

Do PPP ventures come under RTI Act? Planning Commission says not its call

Blood, sweat and tears

For RTI activists of Bihar the cost of exposing corruption is life

Civil society & politics

Ready for guillotining?

The curious case of panchayats in Delhi

The Nagar Swaraj Bill will usher in decentralised governance in the city state, but what happened to rural panchayats?

People’s manifesto

Political parties reverse trend, seek people’s suggestions to draft manifesto

News Snippets

My god v your resource

Recent Supreme Court order in Vedanta case holds hope for tribal community life

Cooperative in spirit

Verghese Kurien, the man who made cooperatives an empowering business model

Who dropped MESA?

Government clueless about the Bill it introduced 12 years ago to govern urban areas in tribal regions. Constitutional crisis follows

‘Citizens must not just blame the government but criticise it’

Public policy expert Rajendra Pratap Gupta speaks about his new book

Andhra in a fix over quota

Cancels local body polls as court says reservation can’t exceed 50%

Streamlining autonomy

Panchayati raj ministry suggests amendments to local governance in north-eastern states

Bank’s first contest

Developing countries challenge US monopoly by putting up candidates for World Bank’s presidency

Agents of change

Gramdoots, or village volunteers, mobilise people to get government machinery moving

The swing

More women than men are voting in India. Majority of them are from rural areas

Machiavellian moves

Rajasthan's decision to bar illiterate people from contesting elections to panchayats is one more example of a state government dominating …