Articles by Kumar Rana

The Panchayat elections being held, currently, in West Bengal are witnessing a more virulent form of ruling class absolutism than that was prevalent during Left Front rule. If the Left Front used to disallow any electoral opposition in order to consolidate their power, the present day ruling Trinamul does the same to an even greater extent – as it seeks to reverse gains of social justice and redistribution in rural Bengal. 

A combination of factors have been responsible for the incidents in late 2007 involving the public distribution system in West Bengal. While the central policy of Targeted Public Distribution System and decreased allocations to the state have been primary contributory factors, local level dynamics that have affected the panchayati raj system are also of significance. This article tries to combine a field study in rural West Bengal with macro-level analysis to analyse the problem.

It would be imprudent to consider private schooling as the alternative to public schools, since a vast majority of parents cannot bear the cost of private school education. Even if a voucher system is introduced (where the government may issue education vouchers to the parents which would enable them to enrol children in schools of their choice). The feasibility of such a system is remote mainly for two reasons: (1) private schooling would involve a far larger amount of parental expenditure than vouchers could offer, and (2) the possibility of establishing private schools in the rural and underprivileged areas of the country is nothing more than a delusion.

Successive efforts initiated by the Left Front government have played a positive role in the expansion of primary education in West Bengal. However, as the findings of this study establish, certain problems still prevail. Poor attendance, perceived class differences, poverty and gender discrimination prevent socially underprivileged groups from accessing education opportunities. On the other hand, the success of the government's experiment in providing cost-effective primary education, particularly to the most underprivileged sections of society must be recognised.

People who migrate temporarily for manual work are not usually unionised and are often unprotected by effective legislation against travel and workplace risks. All this is true of West Bengal, where migrant workers employed in rice cultivation have made crucial contributions to the agricultural successes of the last two decades. West Bengal's gangs of mobile rice workers are recruited directly by individual employers at busy labour market places or in migrants' home villages. This paper summarises the findings of recent empirical research on the scale and pattern of seasonal migration for rice work in West Bengal. It analyses the causes and consequences of the migration, including its relation to ongoing social change in four source areas.