The National Advisory Council's recommendations on the National Food Security Bill are in danger of being brushed aside. It is the fate of most advisory committees that the government accepts whatever advice suits its purposes and ignores the rest. The first version of the National Advisory Council (NAC-1) managed to avoid that fate to some extent, due to favourable circumstances. NAC-1 was able to persuade the government to enact the...

Acceding to the demands of the fishing community, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has agreed to drop or modify many provisions of the draft Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) 2010 notification. Chairman of the National Fish workers Forum (NFF) Matanhy Saldanha toldThe Hindu here on Friday that the draft notification, brought out in September 2010, had drawn the ire of the fishing communities for its failure to reverse the liberal...

Between the technical rigour and finality of CAG audit and people's airing of grievances, a new audit system that subscribes to, and strengthens, open government may be waiting to be born. The new system is envisaged as one where the CAG’s formal audit includes the relatively new concept of community-led social audit . The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA) presents an opportunity to do this. Traditionally, auditing is a...

Following up on his unprecedented offer, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today wrote to the Public Accounts Committee probing the 2G spectrum allocation scam, expressing his readiness to appear before it. On a day when Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai, whose report projecting a presumptive loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the exchequer in 2G spectrum allocation created a storm, appeared before the PAC, Singh made the offer in...

The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) headed by ecologist Madhav Gadgil has decided to walk the untrodden path. In the summary report which raises environmental concerns in the Sindhudurg and Ratnagiri regions of Maharashtra and emphatically supports the rights of its people, while strongly criticising the government's role, the WGEEP gave voice to the years of protests witnessed by the regions. The report seeks to answer various questions related to...