The Seed Bill 2010 -- which stayed in controversy because its initial draft seemed to favour agri-business rather than the farmer -- is now ready to get debated and passed in the current session of Parliament. Despite consultations, first in a Parliamentary Standing Committee and later in an all party meeting, a large number of farmers’ unions, opposition parties and civil society groups believe that the Bill fails to protect...

-Express News Service   As the Parliamentary Standing Committee starts its meetings to debate the Lokpal Bill and Anna Hazare’s team meets MPs, the National Campaign for Peoples’ Rights for Information (NCPRI) has launched its strongest broadside ever against the government as well as the non-governmental members of the drafting committee on the Bill for their inability to stick to their promise of ‘pre-legislative consultation’. Aruna Roy, a prominent member of the Sonia...

The Union government on Monday asked the States to prepare a below poverty line (BPL) list by March, census for which is now on, so that the needy are readied to enjoy the benefits to be rolled out under the 12th Five Year Plan. Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh hoped the States would prepare the list at the earliest. The Centre would, by December-end, complete its exercise of generating...

Members of Parliament, cutting across party lines, have demanded an increase in the wages and workdays of the beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, one of the flagship programmes of the UPA government, so as to insulate them from the galloping inflation. The demands were made by the members, including those of the ruling Congress-led ruling coalition, at a meeting of the parliamentary consultative committee on the...

The Union Government has announced that it would bring the Lokpal Bill in the monsoon session of Parliament which is expected to pass it in the winter session. The all-party meeting held on the Lokpal issue damned the civil society and passed a one-line resolution: “The all-party meeting agreed that the government should bring before the next session of Parliament a strong and effective Lokpal Bill following established procedures.” The...