M Vivekananda

Letters

Read more about Employment Guarantee: Why Progress Is Patchy?

Holding a Mirror to the New Lok Sabha

Vol. 39, Issue No. 45, 06 Nov, 2004

Following a Supreme Court directive, the 2004 parliamentary elections saw the submission of affidavits by contesting candidates for the first time, providing information on their education, assets, criminal cases, borrowings from public financial institutions and dues to the government. This paper presents the findings obtained by an analysis of affidavits submitted by elected candidates. While they point to the increasing number of younger (age group 36-55) and educated (graduates) MPs, other instances also confirm the correlation between money power and criminal cases. The clear dominance of the better-off in the electoral arena calls for a reform of electoral laws. Not only is greater transparency and accountability required, but also a debate on whether elections need to be publicly financed, so as to enable the creation of a level playing field for all aspiring candidates.

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State of India's Public Services

Vol. 39, Issue No. 09, 28 Feb, 2004

K Gopakumar, M Vivekananda, Samuel Paul, Sita Sekhar, Suresh Balakrishnan

This paper assesses the state of public services in India from a user perspective and offers a set of benchmarks for future comparisons. Five services, namely, drinking water, health care, PDS, public transport and primary education are covered by the study. Each service is assessed in terms of four dimensions, viz, access, use, reliability and user satisfaction. State level data are used to compare the performance of different states with reference to these attributes. The paper also examines the experience of poor households and the less developed states with these services.

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The Poor as a Social Stratum-Some Economic Criteria for Studying Poverty

Vol. 17, Issue No. 27, 03 Jul, 1982

M Vivekananda, V M Rao

Some Economic Criteria for Studying Poverty V M Rao M Vivekananda Economics does seem to provide same simple and relevant criteria to spot the poor in the NSS data and to bring out their features of interest to social sciences. The approach needs, basically, an urge to look at the poor as a social stratum distinguishable from other strata and to look into the process giving rise to stratification of society.