Feature Article

A high-voltage campaign to draft in record time a major anti-corruption law (Lokpal Bill) for India won concessions from the government in the street, but thereafter its leaders found the going much tougher.

Arvind Kejriwal has been the moving force behind the India Against Corruption movement and the fast unto death undertaken by Anna Hazare at Jantar Mantar. He spoke to Civil Society on his draft for a Jan Lokpal Bill and some of the concerns expressed over how it has been put together.

Nikhil Dey is the low-profile joint convener of the National Campaign for the People's Right to Information (NCPRI). As a member of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), he has worked extensively at the grassroots for the implementation of the RTI Act and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).

In 2003, when Hungund taluk in the Bagalkot district of Karnataka was hit by a severe drought, farmers did not have to buy food grain from the market. Nearly 90 per cent of them had built bunds and conserved topsoil using traditional techniques of drought-proofing which have their roots in this district.

In recent months, the BJP-dominated Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the Congress-led Delhi government have been outdoing each other in floating proposals and schemes for better governance. The MCD is in the throes of implementing a new Residents' Welfare Committee (RWC) scheme.

Happy anniversary to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF)! April 2011 saw the completion of the first year of the ministry's promise to ensure green justice for one and all.

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Thanks to a voucher scheme, more women are taking advantage of professional healthcare services in five trial-programme areas in Kenya. The idea is to boost the capacities of existing healthcare facilities by ensuring that poor patients have the purchasing power to buy the services they need. Experience of five years shows that output-based aid makes sense.

Fuel (diesel and petrol) constitutes a complex mixture of volatile flammable liquid hydrocarbons among them benzene (BZ), toluene (TOL), and xylene (XYL) are considered to be the most hazardous, predominantly BZ because of its carcinogenic potency. Exposure to these compounds may have an impact on the health of the exposed subjects.

While it is widely agreed that an important goal of Panchayati Raj is to ensure better implementation of government's rural development programmes by ensuring participation of people, it is also important to assert that the Panchayati Raj insitutions at various levels (or three tiers) is certainly not restricted to blind acceptance of the policies and programmes of the central and state governm