ON February 12, Meham town in Rohtak district, Haryana, saw a citizens’ convention that was unusual in more than one sense. First, it was being held from the ramparts of the Meham Chaubisi Chabootara, a platform reserved for members of the Meham panchayat (a conglomeration of 24 villages, better known as the Meham Chaubisi). Second, the meeting was not dominated by any one caste. Third, it was a congregation of...
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Ministers’ panel proposes limits for National Food Security Bill by Liz Mathew and Ruhi Tewari
An empowered group of ministers (eGoM) has urged the government to delink the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA) from nutritional security and keep the issue price of wheat and rice flexible under the Act. But a top official of the agriculture ministry said some members of the congress-led United Progressive Alliance government want NFSA to be an “umbrella legislation” addressing social security concerns. “The finance ministry is of the view that...
More »On GM food, Govt begins its Jairam damage control
Pushed to a corner by Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh’s peremptory freeze on Bt brinjal, the UPA government took the first step of finding a way out. And it needed the authority of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to do that. In a clear enunciation of the government’s policy on GM crops — a policy that got clouded by Ramesh’s rhetoric — the Prime Minister underlined the importance of biotechnology in productivity...
More »Sugar: Exports despite shortage leave Govt red-faced by Rahul Srivastava
Sugar prices have been rising, and the government has been offering sweet nothings. But on Tuesday the entire Opposition - even UPA's allies - will put the government in the dock over price rise. At this juncture, a notification by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) is certainly bad news for the beleaguered government. Though sugar exports are banned, the DGFT issued a notice on February 15 allocating 10,000 Metric tonnes...
More »UPA govt hands out a raw deal to dalits and adivasis by Subodh Varma
In its election manifesto for the 2009 general elections, congress had promised that it would ensure that allocations made under the Special Components Plan (SCP) for scheduled castes and the Tribal Sub-Plan for scheduled tribes are in accordance with their proportion in the total population. These two crucial schemes ensure that a proportion of all plan spending has to go towards the most marginalized and deprived sections of Indian society...
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