Saturday, April 2, 2011

India’ property rights index

Parth Shah of CCS discuses the improvement of property rights index in the new report:  
  • One may argue as to how could political stability in India might have declined, as the government at the Centre as well as ruling regimes in states are comparatively more stable than earlier years. It is because the index does not measure only stay of the governments in office, but all sorts of disruptive movements like naxal and Telangana, explained Dr Parth J Shah, president of the Centre for Civil Society, partner of Property Rights Alliance in India for this index.
  • He said there are incidents of human rights violation in J&K and north eastern parts of the country. Besides, special and arbitrary powers are given to army through the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)in Jammu and Kashmir.
  • As expected, the report says that judicial independence is slightly on the rise in India. Without naming court's interventions in alleged scams in spectrum allocation for 2G and commonwealth games, Shah said there are instances of the judiciary challenging the executive in recent times in India.
  • In physical property rights, India scored 6.6 points in 2011 index, same as in 2010. However, Indian system of keeping records relating to physical property are too archaic. Even the last major land survey was conducted during British times.
  • “So far as property rights are concerned, the poor continue to fight the battle against forceful acquisition of their land by either the government or private parties. This remains a point of serious concern for India even as we achieve high rates of growth every year” Shah said.

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