Up to three-fourths of villagers and half of city dwellers will be entitled to subsidised food grains under a new bill, with the Centre refusing to budge on the volume of grain entitlement and continuing with upper limits for beneficiaries. The National Food Security Bill, redrafted on the basis of feedback from states and civil society groups, will soon be sent to the cabinet so that it can be introduced in...

-Express News Service   In what could strengthen the case of those seeking lifting of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) from parts of J&K and insurgency-hit North-East, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has said the AFSPA “remains in force in Jammu & Kashmir and the North-Eastern States, conferring an impunity that often leads to the violation of human rights”. This (continuation of AFSPA), a report prepared by the NHRC...

Watching the recent debate on the poverty line has been a depressing experience. As the debate unfolded, we witnessed self-righteous commentators engaged in a game of one-upmanship to prove that no one was more concerned for the poor than they, electronic media failing in its responsibility to inform the public simple facts and the Planning Commission proving itself incapable of communicating in simple terms the rationale behind its proposal either...

Carrying forward from the opening of a school in Hamidpur Char & enrolling 378 children on Thursday, for whom education had been a distant dream come true, it was the day for yet another batch of 136 children enrolled in to a newly setup school in the age group of 6-8 yrs of Narayanpur Char in Manichak Block of Malda District, also visited by the 5 member Team of NCPCR...

 Having publicly objected to the Communal Violence Bill drafted by the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC), the Narendra Modi-led Gujarat government has now sent its strong objections to Sonia’s pet project, National Food Security Bill, terming it against the sanctity of the federal structure of the Constitution. Gujarat has objected to provisions that allow the Centre to prescribe terms and conditions for the appointment of district grievance redressal officers, empowers...