Emily Esplen visited a community in Dhaka where inspiring community organisers are showing change is possible When I met members of the Dalit Women's Forum in Dhaka last month, they told me about the changes they want to see in their lives and communities. They want their daughters to go to school and stay in school. They want privacy and security when bathing in communal areas. They want health care and...

There is a new “plan” for the scheduled tribes, but the adivasis themselves will have no say. Alienation from the forest and its resources, alienation from cultivable land and alienation from the State underlie the anger of the adivasis in India’s heartland. This is not a new or startling observation. Adivasi mass organisations, the more sensitive administrators, political organisations with their ears to the ground and scholars who have studied India’s...

Right to Food Campaign demands a universal PDS “It is a dishonest proposal of the government” The Right of Food Campaign has charged the Central government with lack of commitment in providing food and nutrition security to citizens with its reported decision to revise the issue prices of wheat and rice for the Above Poverty Line (APL) category of beneficiaries in the Public Distribution System (PDS). “This is the first step to finish...

The National Advisory Council chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi today said the Forest Rights Act (FRA) needed strengthening and the Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment at Work Place Bill, 2010, must be extended to domestic workers. It also discussed how to push its views on the proposed National Food security Bill, apart from deciding to examine the working of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme. Aat a meeting today...

One more effort to make government reconsider objections The Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council (NAC) has decided to stick to its recommendations made on the draft National Food security Bill at its meeting on October 23 last, though these have been rejected by a government committee led by C. Rangarajan, who heads the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council. The committee was constituted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to examine the feasibility of...