India

Unlike many developing countries, India’s economy has been growing at a fast pace, enabling the government to mobilize the necessary resources internally for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Its dependence on international aid, especially for financial resources is minimal; in fact it has declined bilateral aid from many countries. Despite this, however, the country has failed to achieve most of the goals and targets. The main reasons for this are inadequate funding, inappropriate administration and ignorance of policy and governance issues.

Ultimately however, the failure is due to the absence of inclusiveness in the development model. Instead of enabling people to acquire basic needs such as food, sanitation, water, health care, the government is promoting ‘non-inclusive growth’ and has sought to provide basic services through subsidies with the associated problems of inefficiency and corruption.

Bangalore - After independence, we got bureaucracy not democracy, said Bhaskar Rao Gorantla, Research Director of National Social Watch (India). He was addressing a gathering of civil society representatives at a consultation programme organized by the Karnataka Social Watch on administrative reforms.

Listing various structural problems in the administration, he said that although the central and state level administrations have undergone a positive change since independence, the district/local level administrative bodies have not undergone any significant changes.

Gujarat Social Watch has come up with study and analysis of the works of this Indian state Legislative Assembly-10th session of 12th assembly, as the elections are due in December this year. The book “Vidhantantra-Am Adami Ni Najare” is an effort to promote public engagement and improve accessibility and accountability to the members of this parliamentary body.

Gujarati Legislative Assembly.

Gujarat Social Watch (GSW, member of Social Watch India) revealed this week, in its review of the 10th session of the 12th Gujarati Legislative Assembly, that the chief minister (head of the state government) Narendra Modi spoke only three times in the entire session, which lasted 30 days.

Photo: Social Watch India

Central and local authorities’ failures are responsible for the gloomy performance of the health sector in Indian state of Chhattisgarh, according to the most recent report produced by the local Social Watch coalition. The governments must be held accountable for the fulfillment of this Constitutional and basic right, but the citizens also have the responsibility to monitor its implementation, activist said while they released the study.

Ranja Sengupta. (Photo: Civil Society News)

In India, where economic, social and gender inequalities persist historically, and where trade policies are not 'gender neutral' the impact of trade policy on women must be paid serious attention to. Ranja Sengupta, senior researcher with the Third World Network (TWN), is worried that as the country climbs up the ladder of an emerging economy, the health, education and food needs of women get affected.

Photo: Karnataka Legislative Assembly.

In an indication of elected representatives’ apathy to people’s causes, 129 of the 224 legislators in the Indian State of Karnataka have never posed a single question during the Legislature sessions held last year, revealed the Karnataka Social Watch Report 2012, according to The Hindu newspaper.

Photo: Social Watch India

Social Watch India organized two half-day workshops, the first on the Basic Capabilities Index (BCI) and the Gender Equity Index (GEI), and the second on National Minorities Commission.

In terms of gender equity India is in critical condition. The South Asian giant is below the already dim regional average, and its only neighbour presenting a wider gender gap is Pakistan, one of the countries in worse gender situation in the entire world.

Photo: Social Watch India

“The notion of evaluating social development on the basis of economical growth should change, as the studies from different aspects reveal the growing disparities in the societies across the globe,” said Dr.Yogesh Kumar, Executive Director of Samarthan and National Convener of Social Watch India. Kumar was talking in Bangalore at the launching of the Social Watch Report 2012.

In Delhi, Jangpura Extension. (Photo: April May/Flickr/CC)

The people have been facing different kinds of deprivation and inequality in the Indian cities, according to a UNESCO study on the India urban policies reported by Governance Now analysis portal. “There are inequality, ghettoisation, apartheid and segregation across the cities in India,” said Miloon Kothari, former UN special rapporteur on adequate housing.

The debate conducted by Social Watch and Governance Now in New Delhi (Photo: Chinky Shukla/Jesudasu Seelam)

Sources: Social Watch India, Governance Now
Do regional parliamentarians have a voice in Indian democracy? What is the role of parliamentary committees? What exactly is the ambit of a parliamentarian? Questions like these were debated at “People, Parliament and Performance”, a discussion conducted by Social Watch India in partnership with Governance Now magazine in New Delhi.

Social Watch India launched its latest report. (Photo: SWIndia)

Source: Social Watch India

Most of the 70,000 complaints filed every year at the National Human Rights Commission of India “are against police”, said Dr. K. S.Subramanian, former policeman and author of the report “Social Watch India Perspective Series Vol.:3”, launched last week.

Source: The New Indian Express.

The new figures set by the Indian government to define poverty (an income of USD 0.45 a day for urban people and one of 0.33 for those living in rural areas) are “abysmally low”, wrote Himanshu Jha, the national coordinator of Social Watch India, in his most recent column for The New Indian Express, one of the major newspapers of his country. The politics fixed according to these indicators can exclude “a large section of the population” that needs aid from “the available social security net, which in this country is minimalist by any standard,” he warned. 

Jha’s column reads as follows:

Source: National Social Watch Coalition India (NSWC)

The 2010 report of Social Watch India, to be launched in Delhi next Tuesday  December 21st, includes evaluation of the working of Parliament in terms of the issues of representation and accountability, and examines the role and consequences of the Union’s public policy and its effects on the lives of the people. In addition, issues of judiciary - confrontation with the executive, pendency of cases, probity of judges and persisting vacancies at all levels- are qualitatively and quantitatively analysed.

The dynamics of International Financial Institutions and private capital in the globalized world has often acted as delimiting factors to state sovereignty. The role of Social Watch as a ‘watch dog’ gains significance in the current context of multiple crisis stressed the Pan-Asian Workshop: "Who pays? The global crises and what needs to be done – an Asian perspective" held in New Delhi, India, 22- 24 February 2010.

First published by The Times of India

NEW DELHI:  In a scathing indictment of the parliamentary committee system, an independent report has said that leave alone acting as watchdogs, committees were vulnerable to manipulation. The report — Evaluating Parliamentary Committees and Committee System — prepared by the National Social Watch Coalition elaborates with examples how committees have been used by the government to serve its ends.

Next month in India, the “world´s largest democracy” will begin a process of national Parliamentary elections for the first time since 2004, in a critical moment in which issues related to security and to the economy are weighing heavily on voters´ minds. Taking this context into account, this month´s “Spotlight On…” column will focus on the Social Watch India coalition, whose work to promote transparency and accountability in politics will be crucial during this election period.

Social Watch India released the first perspective paper on “Law Under Globalization” which provides an insight into recent trends in both law making processes and judicial behaviour, with a stress on how the logic and instruments of globalization are directly affecting the rule of law.

A civil society delegation representing the National Social Watch Coalition (NSWC) engaged in a meaningful interaction with the Planning Commission around the Citizens' Report on Governance and Development 2007 and the monitoring of the key institutions of governance namely Parliament, Executive- Policy, Judiciary and Local self Governance. Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia and the Planning Commission Members actively participated in the discourse.

The Social Watch India Report 2007 will be released on 30th June 2007 at Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi . The report focuses on the performance of institutions of governance namely the Parliament, the Executive, the Judiciary and the institutions of local self governance from a human rights perspective. The Social Watch India Report 2007 emphasizes the importance of ensuring these Rights to vulnerable sections such as the tribals, the dalits, the poor and the women.

Andhra Pradesh Social Watch Coalition & Dalit Bahujan Shramik Union invite to the Release of A.P. Social Watch Report 2007 that will be held next Tuesday 22nd May 2007, Indira Park, Hyderabad.

This week sees the launch of a major critical report on India's largest mining company, Vedanta Resources plc, based in London.

The National Social Watch coalition launched the "First Citizens Report on Governance and Development" on June 9, 2003, in New Delhi, India.