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Professor R Raj Rao and Dibyajyoti Sarma talk about their book,
Whistling in the Dark.
Through 21 searing interviews the authors uncover the lives queer men are forced to live.
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Subhash Bhatnagar's Unlocking E-Government Potential is a practical guide on implementing e-government initiatives.
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Inclusive Education Across Cultures: Activists and researchers present their experiences of how every child can gain from quality education.
Edited by Mithu Alur and Vianne Timmons.
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What should you eat during the monsoons?
Dr GG explains a rainy diet.
Ask him for green cures.
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CURRENT EDITION
LAST MONTH'S EDITION
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Will the UPA govt
be able to live up
to its ambitious
agenda?
Civil Society News
New Delhi
A Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is back in power at the Centre. It has a new look. There are many young ministers and a large number of independent-minded older ones. Everyone is on board with an election promise of a strong social agenda.
Health, education, land rights, affordable housing, rural development, environment, social justice - these are the new government's key areas of concern. As expectations soar, the question being asked is if this is for real. Has the bar truly gone up in politics?
When the UPA came to power for the first time in 2004, the National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by Sonia Gandhi became the hub of a wider consultation. The priorities that emerged from that dialogue and filtered into government gave it an activist edge.
Five years later, those are the very initiatives that have helped bring the government back to power. The Congress' victory has been possible because of rural employment guarantee, right to information, tribal rights, changes in land acquisition and the loan waiver to farmers.
NAC connectivity helped the Congress see governance differently. There could be no reforms without inclusion. What is unfolding now as the recently appointed ministers take office is the next stage of that awareness.
Also read : Gangtok MP has mountain agenda
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The things Nitish
Kumar does right
Harivansh
Patna
BIHAR is a state which has defied good governance. But in just three and
half years Nitish Kumar as chief minister has proved that diligence in
administration can bring about wonders. If little has been heard of him
during this time it is because he has been working quietly. Turning a state
around is no easy task. And getting Bihar on track is doubly difficult.
The results of the recent parliamentary election results, however, have
left no doubt about the impact that his government has had. Now Nitish is
really big news. His Janata Dal (U) won 22 seats while another 10 seats went
to his alliance partner, the Bharatiya Janata Party.
So what is it that Nitish has done so right? How has he succeeded in
demolishing the caste bastions of Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan
and simultaneously outdoing the Left and the Congress?
Nitish spends long hours in his secretariat. He is known as the "16-hour chief minister". Till the election results came out you couldn't be sure whether the description was being used out of derision or admiration. Paswan, for instance, made it plain that he saw little hope for Nitish, saying a "glorified clerk" couldn't be expected to run Bihar. The people of the state clearly think otherwise because Paswan has been wiped out.
One of Nitish's priorities has been to restore order and discipline in the state government. The only way of doing this was by setting an example. Since he himself works long hours and doesn't hold up files, officers and his ministerial colleagues have to be pretty sure that they do likewise. He has also chosen good officers to fill important posts in Patna and empowered them to bring the administration in the districts back to life as well. Government staff, long accustomed to snubbing authority, found they couldn't bully the new chief minister. They had to come to work on time, accept computerisation and so on.
Read more...
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Shreyasi Singh
New Delhi
INDIAN politics is today an interesting
study in gender dynamics with several
important positions being occupied by
women. There are now 59 women in the
Lok Sabha. Perhaps they will dent the
male domination of Parliament and pave
the way for more women to get elected.
Of the 59 MPs, 29 are making their debut in politics and are mostly young,
urbane and well-educated. As newcomers
they are full of optimism and are all set to
champion the women's reservation bill.
"I am confident the presence of a larger number of women politicians will have a genuine impact on the ground," says Meenakshi Natarajan, newly-elected 36- year-old Member of Parliament from Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh.
As a Congress student leader with no
political lineage, Natarajan has emerged as
one of the young icons of the 2009 elections,
fighting a tough battle against the
veteran Laxmi Narayan Pandey of the BJP. She even returned her unspent campaign
money to the party.
Natarajan says India has already witnessed the benefits of reserving seats for women. She cites the 73rd Constitutional Amendment of 1992 that reserved 33 per cent of seats for women in local self-governance units like the Gram Panchayat, Block Panchayat and District Panchayat. With access to opportunity, she says, women have the ability to make their mark in politics.
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Civil Society News
New Delhi
INDIA's banking system still
does not reach a majority of
the country's population. The
poor do not have bank accounts
and continue to depend on moneylenders.
Microfinance institutions
have made headway with
communities and self-help
groups of women, but in the
absence of policy and a national
strategy vast numbers remain
left out. Given the demand, the
money disbursed through microfinance
is insignificant. Much
more needs to be done to provide
access to the banking system
if poverty is to be addressed
and the majority are to benefit
from economic growth.
"Inclusion is not possible without financial inclusion," says Vijay Mahajan, founder of Basix, an organisation which provides financial and technical assistance for 'new generation livelihoods' at the grassroots. Since 1996, Basix, which works in 15 states, has extended assistance to over a million and a half customers, 90 per cent of whom come from poor, rural households. About 10 per cent of its clients are urban slum-dwellers.
Mahajan, one of the most respected voices in the microfinance sector, spoke to Civil Society on the roadblocks facing the sector.
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Vivek S Ghatani
Darjeeling
MAY 26 was the darkest day for people living
in the Darjeeling hills. Cyclone Aila struck
with fury. Around 27 people died and hundreds
were left homeless. Landslides ripped
homes, electricity connections snapped and roads
were left in tatters. Two dams being built by the
National Hydroelectric Power Corporation
(NHPC), Stages III and IV of the Teesta Low Dam
Project (TLDP) suffered huge damage.
People fear the worst is not over. Four monsoon months will bring some 2500 mm of rain and trigger landslides once again.
"This is precisely the scenario we have been shouting hoarse about," said Praful Rao of Save the Hills, an NGO campaigning against the landslide menace. "Landslides take place in densely populated urban areas and the cause is largely anthropogenic. I have talked to many people from Darjeeling and Kurseong and we agree that landslides are caused by improper drainage."
At 6:45 am on 26 May, Pooja Gurung was cleaning a mat at her home in Haridashatta when she heard a small thud and felt herself being pushed against the door by the hills sliding down.
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Umesh Anand
YOUNG, educated and mission-driven people are making their presence felt in politics. Some of them are ministers in the new government. The bar in public life it seems is going up. There couldn't be better news because a democracy should be able to rely on its politicians. The higher their standards the better the quality of governance and stronger the system.
The recent Lok Sabha election was won on the promise of inclusion. But finding solutions to the problems of land, housing, water, health, schools, transport etc won't be easy. Where should a government begin? How should it spend? How can it build trust?
For far too long now governments have been in the grip of narrow interests. Industry, for instance, has had a disproportionate influence over policies and the processes by which they are implemented. If it is not industry, it could be plain populism or just corruption that destroys good governance.
Getting government out of these equations requires tact and insight. But the way forward is really through contemporary solutions from those new leaders who have come into politics with a different vision. There can be no substitute for activism be it within parties or the government itself.
Read more...
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Subir Roy
Bangalore
MELWIN D'Costa , 35, and
Narayanaswamy, 27, work for
MphasiS, an information technology
and business process outsourcing
company started 10 years ago in
Bangalore. They have put in 18 and 15
months respectively. Both are as
cheerful and articulate as bright young
people in this most modern of Indian
industries invariably are. But what
sets them apart is that they have disabilities.
D'Costa is tall and moves around in crutches. He was hale and hearty till he was 18 when a viral attack affected his spinal cord and left his lower limbs paralysed. He studied in a polytechnic for the physically disabled where he got a diploma in computer science and thereafter taught the same discipline before joining MphasiS. Narayanaswamy has to move in a wheelchair, having been afflicted by polio when he was two years old. He is an M Com. from Bangalore University.
Both work in the back office operations of the London office of a Zurich headquartered insurance company. Via email they get data in the nature of proposals and quotations for insurance cover from prospective customers. They enter and process the data according to parameters laid down and then issue the documents, that is, the insurance policies.
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A Delhi filmmaker unravels the stark story of Varanasi's Dom boys
Saibal Chatterjee
New Delhi
IT is a world apart where human existence seems to be at its most macabre. Life is a trap here, death a harbinger of liberation. As bodies burn on the pyres of Varanasi's Manikarnika cremation ground - Hindus from far and wide bring their loved ones to this sacred site in the hope of easing their way to heaven - the palpable and the immaterial, the transient and the eternal, the blessed and the damned intermingle inexorably in the smoky, surreal haze that hangs over this patch of land by the Ganga.
It is on this stark, phantasmagoric spectacle with a bunch of seven Dom boys who live and work at the cremation ground that Delhi filmmaker Rajesh S Jala focusses his camera. What emerges is a devastatingly unflinching and haunting feature-length documentary, Children of the Pyre. The film presents a disturbing yet irresistibly watchable account of childhood reduced to cinders.
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Susheela Nair
Puducherry
VYSIAL Street is a popular Franco-Tamil architectural
streetscape beyond the Grand Canal
in the Tamil Quarter of Puducherry. Strolling
down the street, one could feel the community's
palpable sense of pride after they bagged the
Award of Merit 2008 from UNESCO for cultural
heritage conservation in February this year.
The street underwent a facelift. Under the Vysial Street Restoration Project the facade of several heritage buildings was restored and some houses redesigned to fit in with the streetscape. Municipal services were improved.
"The restoration was made possible with the concerted efforts of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, (INTACH), government departments such as the local administration, town planning, and public works apart from private individuals and organisations," says Ashok Panda, coordinator of INTACH.
Vysial Street, is dominated by the Telugu speaking Chettiars who gave the street the French name of Rue Calve Subbraya Chetty. The entire street-stretch looks homogenous because of its connecting elements and houses adjoining each other. Being a part of this street is a matter of pride for the Soussilabai Government Girls Higher Secondary School, which is a fusion of French and Indian architecture.
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