Panic seems to have gripped the people who have purchased their long-cherished homes through power of attorneys and wills following the news about the ruling of the supreme court and its observations concerning the fate of immovable properties sold vide general power of attorneys and wills. Some common issues of concern and effect of the supreme court ruling are discussed here.
Let the crowd carry you to wherever it is headed. No rules apply if you are on the road. The crowds would have taken up the road entirely, a mile of which would have been closed for security reasons anyway. You may not be able to walk on the left side, something that you have known since elementary school as THE rule for pedestrians. So, don’t try and observe such rules. Let the crowd dir
You need political will, not huge funds, to fix social sector problems like maternal mortality, says a new report from the World Bank. This should serve as a timely reminder for the Manmohan Singh government that seems to consider the GDP growth as panacea to all developmental hiccups. The Bank has cited the examples of Malaysia and Sri Lanka, where political will and not shootin
Ramra is a typical west Uttar Pradesh (UP) village some 20 kms east of Panipat and lies on the left bank of the river Yamuna. Some 5, 000 voters (kudos to the democratic identity that rural India today prefers) strong, it is a good religious mix of Muslims and Hindus living in a single village spread over three identifiable hamlets. We were in Ramra to facilitate two back to back
The Mahatma Gandhi national rural employment guarantee scheme (MNREGS) is one of the few central schemes that have a large number of monitoring agencies keeping an eye on implementation. From the centre to the state to the district to the panchayat level, there is some agency or the other appointed to look into any allegation of irregularity in the scheme. However, call it the sheer brazenness
If you are feeling on top of the world, certain that whatever happens you inhabit this, the best possible of all worlds and feel convinced that you wear a rainbow around your shoulders, there’s an antidote. Just call up an insurance agent. He is guaranteed to de-rainbow you without even trying. And I am not talking about the kind of thing that happened to the poet Coleridge who had to lea
India stands at the 67th spot among 81 nations listed (in the decreasing order) by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in its recently released global hunger index (GHI) report 2011. However, a poverty of statistics could be responsible for India`s poor showing as the government has failed to update the child malnourishment figure which is considered in calculating the
India stands at the 67th spot among 81 nations listed (in the decreasing order) by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in its recently released global hunger index (GHI) report 2011. However, a poverty of statistics could be responsible for India`s poor showing as the government has failed to update the child malnourishment figure which is considered in calculating the inde
Penfriends are rare in this age. However, wherever there are two of them still exchanging letters; surprisingly, rules are the same old-school type. A veil of secrecy, a matador-like finesse in selection of words and an occasional, but deliberate, dropping of a surprise. In short, you have to go on in your preferably cursive longhand — like a ballerina on a pink sheet — without reve
A part of the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture delivered in the national capital on Tuesday by union minister for rural development Jairam Ramesh is reproduced below: I am not just privileged but also truly humbled to be part of this prestigious lecture series launched a half century and six years ago by none other than C. Rajagopalachari. Many distinguished personalities have pre
First, some exhibits. Today’s edition of the business newspaper Mint carries a small announcement on the front page: Note to readers Dear Reader, The Media Marketing Initiatives on Pages 13 and 29 are the equivalent of paid-for advertisements, and no Mint journalists were involved in creating these. Readers would do well to treat them as adverti
Our union law minister Salman Khurshid made some breathtaking observations that reflect how this government is fixated on growth at any cost. First, his take. Speaking to the Indian Express on Sunday, he said: “What will affect the functioning of the government is if other institutions do not understand the kind of political economy we are faced with today: what is needed t
No government in the past had been even subject to the enormous and multiple challenges in governance that the present dispensation faces. Issues and concerns making the challenges monumental include the perceived low public confidence and credibility in the government, instances of corruption of never-heard-before proportions inflicting numerous sections of the dispensation, inept handling of
Literacy and employment - two crucial indicators of socioeconomic well-being - are critically low in Muslim communities of Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, two of India`s largest states. According to a new report brought out by Abusaleh Shariff, member secretary, Sachar committee, “The literacy level of Muslim OBCs in urban areas in Andhra Pradesh, has not increased at the matric
When I logged on this Vijayadashami morning, the apple.com home screen announced the demise. My next stop was facebook. Several friends had already pasted the piercing black and white picture on their homepage. Twitter had thousands of tributes; President Obama’s and Bill Gates’s among them. The speech at Stanford had been delivered six years back, but its
Even as the top economists in the government concern themselves with 8 percent growth, they seem to be missing the urgent concerns. Health and human rights activist Dr Binayak Sen talks of India`s nutritional failure and the ramifications it could have in an interview with Governance Now. Dr Sen says that large parts of the country are under the grip of a stable famine
The much publicised National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill, 2011 has wheels within wheels. The bill is uniquely prepared as it consolidated the provisions of acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement on one single platform. Some key FAQs on the bill are as follows: 1. What is the add-on in the definition of ‘Person Interested&r
Not long ago (to be precise exactly 15 years back), Narendra Modi passionately talked about a dream he had been nursing for a while. Like a wandering ascetic, he wanted to walk along the course of the river Narmada in a spiritual tradition which seeks pursuit of god through penance. In Gujarati society, penance is deeply ingrained in the people’s psyche because of influence of Jainis
When it comes to crime, India’s largest state UP has the highest incidence of firearm fatalities. Adding insult to injury, a report says that the state also has the highest number of cities nationwide where this occurs. “Most cities (Allahabad, Agra, Kanpur, Meerut and Varanasi) in UP had a high percentage of firearm fatalities due to accidents and a very low percentage of firearm f
India stands an ignominious second in global rankings when it comes to skewed sex ratio - right after neighbour and rival China. "Nearly four million poor women go ‘missing’ each year in developing countries," said the ‘World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development`, released by World Bank. The report says that in China and India, the number
