How Sangrur cuts red tape, takes services online
Sarabjit Singh has come to the Sewa Kendra in Sangrur, a town in southwest Punjab, to apply for a birth certificate for his new-born grandson. “This centre is a real boon,” he says with a smile. “Last month I got my gun licence renewed within 22 days and that too
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The small sewage solution is finally here
Localised sewage treatment systems for as little as Rs 1 crore and catering to just a few score households are now a reality, making it possible for rapidly expanding urban areas in India to become cleaner and less prone to diseases caused by faecal contamination. A Faecal Sludge and Septage Management
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Goan village takes on big builder and won’t give up
Two months before the Cockroach Janta Party’s (CJP) Gen Z protest against exam paper leaks began at Jantar Mantar, a group of women started a sit-in in Goa’s tranquil village of Carapur in Bicholim taluka. They were opposing a mega project by the Mumbai-based House of Abhinandan Lodha (HoABL). Spread
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How SocialCops put BPL women on LPG list
About 150 organisations across 26 countries turn to SocialCops, a data intelligence company in New Delhi, for data solutions. Their list of clients includes Singapore Zoo which wants to monitor a rare species; an NGO trying to find out whether its funds are being used to construct quality toilets; an
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Give us our forests, say gram sabhas
Fifteen panchayats in the Kashmir Valley have passed resolutions declaring forests in their vicinity as ‘community’ forests, in line with the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006. The government has reacted with complete silence — leaving the gram sabha decisions impossible to implement. This has irked villagers and forest rights
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Goans want Goa to be the way it once was
Full-page advertisements in national dailies promise beaches, greenery, quietude and everything else that is associated with susegad, the easy Goan way of life. But Goans themselves aren’t quite so sure what they have got left to offer. Decades of property developers carving up Goa have resulted in lasting damage to
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Wetlands in Kashmir are withering
Although there are five wetlands of international repute in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), they don’t attract tourists. Even birds will begin to flee from these wetlands due to their abysmal state, fear environmentalists. All five wetlands are Ramsar sites. “Our wetlands are not vacant lands but living systems that sustain
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Rajasthan’s new law gives gig workers big lift
A state law passed in Rajasthan recently holds out promise for gig workers by ensuring a public record of their jobs and having employers of their services contribute to a government-supervised fund for social security. The gig economy has so far been under the spell of aggregators who have used online
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Drug policy in J&K seeks to tackle addiction
A new drug policy to check rising cases of addiction has been drafted in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and made public so that people can read it and provide suggestions. The never ending conflict in the Valley has impacted the youth and most drug users are between 17 and 35
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Dreze: 7 hunger deaths were Aadhaar linked in Jharkhand
In the past two years starvation deaths are being consistently reported from Jharkhand. Activists who went to investigate found that it was people who were very poor and not being given their rations who lost their lives. They just had no food — in a country where there is no
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AHEAD helps panchayats fill in the blanks
The countryside in Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts of North Bengal, nudging the Bhutan hills, as winter fades, is as pleasant, pretty and accessible as it can get. As the hard-topped road gives way to country tracks, the small car moves on two parallel grass strips, with the beaten path in
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Is Aadhaar a blunder? Seven reasons to worry
In Civil Society, we have been tracking Aadhaar much before it became Aadhaar. Our interview with Nandan Nilekani in May 2010 was all about choice and inclusion. An identification number, as it was envisaged then, was specifically meant to help the poor and disenfranchised. It was one of many IDs. Most important
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Villagers get grievance redressal under one roof
It’s a cold and foggy December morning. But this hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm of 35-year-old Nirmala and her 65-year-old mother-in-law, Resham. The two, along with 13 other women, hired a tempo from their village, Chundika, early in the morning and headed to Rangala, a neighbouring village in Tauru block of
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Saligao start to Goa’s zero garbage plan
When Sanjit Rodrigues, managing director of the newly-formed Goa Waste Management Corporation, says the Rs 140-crore modern waste treatment plant at Saligao, which he personally oversees, is power-surplus, it makes one sit up and take notice. This ultra-modern facility generates 7,000 units of electricity every day. Of this, 4,000 units
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Medinipur girls find a friend in Kanyashree
Monika Soren, from Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal, was born into the impoverished tribal Santhal community. Her father was the sole bread earner of her six-member family. As a little girl she would plant a stick into the ground, hang a basket from it, take her father’s bow and arrows
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Poor RTI access in J&K
Jammu and Kashmir was one of the few states to introduce the Right to Information (RTI) Act for bringing transparency in government functioning. However, 13 years after its introduction, most public authorities are wanting in implementation of the Act. A study by advocates Bilal Ahmad Bhat and Syed Iram Quadri reveals
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Roadmap for skill training to provide the young more jobs
The snobbish divide between academics and skills should end and vocational education should be transformed into an aspirational university system closely linked to industry, says a report submitted by a committee of experts set up by the Union Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE). The committee’s recommendations have urgency
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‘We face a serious shortage of skilled young people’
India has a growing number of young people ready to enter the workforce and if they can be given the education and skills they need for jobs away from agriculture, a significant opportunity presents itself for boosting economic growth and transforming the country. The window for making the best of
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Elected Sahariya women swing into action
IT is the wedding season in Gugar, a village dominated by the Sahariya tribe in the Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh. But Jayanti has no time to participate in the festivities. She has to resolve problems related to the midday meal in the Bhadora primary school, two kilometres from her
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‘We need a long-term plan, livelihoods in Bundelkhand’
For three years Bundelkhand has been in the news for devastating drought, forcing people to flee their arid land in droves. This monsoon it finally rained copiously. Tanks, ponds and rivers are now brimming with water. The region has received excessive rain this year. The respite is probably temporary. Inclement
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Dead come back to life in Rajasthan
The 100-day Accountability Yatra across Rajasthan led by the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) has had an impact. The state government has issued orders to re-verify all one million pensions that had been stopped, including the 688,875 pensions that had been cancelled. From December 2015 to March this year the yatra had
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Govt says NGOs are public servants under Lokpal Act
The relationship between the government and the NGO sector is steadily worsening. Hostility between the two isn’t new. A low-intensity battle went on even during the days of the UPA regime between the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and the NGO sector. Now, a new notification issued by the government
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With P-PAS paddy payments are on time in Odisha
Almost 90 per cent of Odisha’s farm produce is paddy. But paddy procurement has always been a sticky problem for successive governments. Every year farmers would block roads and shout slogans because their paddy hadn’t been picked up. Politicians joined them and together they would bring all traffic to a
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J&K panchayats demand 73rd Amendment
Once again panchayat elections are going to be held in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) this coming April. They were last held — after a gap of 33 years — in 2011, when Omar Abdullah of the National Conference was Chief Minister. People had participated enthusiastically with hope in their hearts.
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