This article documents and then examines the various benefits that, it is claimed, will flow from linking the Unique Identity number with the public distribution system and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It filters the unfounded claims, which arise from a poor understanding of how the PDS and NREGS function, from the genuine ones. On the latter, there are several demanding conditions that need to be met in order...
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Supreme Court asks CBI to submit report on Nandigram firing by J Venkatesan
The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to submit its report on the Nandigram firing in West Bengal to enable it to consider whether to permit the agency to go ahead with its plea to prosecute the erring police officials. A Bench of Justices R.V. Raveendran and A.K. Patnaik was hearing a batch of petitions filed by the State, the CBI, the National Human Rights Commission and...
More »Dowry harassment likely to become a bailable offence by Akhilesh Kumar Singh
The Union law department has launched an exercise to tone down the law on matrimonial cruelty, including cases of dowry harassment. Effectively, dowry harassment may soon become a bailable offence. To protect social fibre of family life and check alleged misuse of the law, the department is contemplating changes in Section 498-A of the IPC that defines the offense of matrimonial cruelty. Section 498-A was inserted into the IPC by an amendment...
More »NREGS worker demands revised wages, is beaten to death by Manoj Prasad
A 50-year-old labourer, Subal Mahato, was allegedly beaten to death by his employer for demanding revised wages in accordance with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), in Bokaro on Saturday night. According to NREGA Commissioner Ajay Kumar Singh, Mahato, a resident of Bathua village under Chas block in Bokaro district, was one of the nine workers hired to dig a well. The project, sanctioned for 2010-11, was undertaken...
More »Perjury Simpliciter! by D. Bandyopadhyay
It was widely reported in the print media that G.D. Gautama, the Home Secretary of West Bengal, in his affidavit before the Hon’ble Calcutta High Court in the Netai killings affair, hesitantly admitted the existence of illegal armed intruders in that village while denying any knowledge of the existence of similar harmad camps elsewhere in the Jungle Mahal area. One cannot avoid applauding his gallantry in holding our national motto...
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