Food security is likely to top the resurrected National Advisory Council's (NAC) agenda when its members gather here on Thursday for their introductory meeting. They will also meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. However, sources in the NAC told The Hindu that before food security became a reality, they expect a long hard battle ahead, similar to the one NAC-I faced over the enactment of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act,...
More »SEARCH RESULT
The social question, who cares? by Jan Breman
Built into the economic dogma of growth first is the ingrained notion held by large segments of the nation's elite that the fabric of inequality is meant to remain unimpaired. “The Challenge of Employment in India; An Informal Economy Perspective” sums up the findings of a National Commission set up in September 2004 to review the status of the unorganised/ínformal sector in India (Volume I Main Report and volume II...
More »Is Sonia's NAC-2 a Super Cabinet? by Sheela Bhatt
"It is wrong to say that we will become a super cabinet. We are here to get the Indian bureaucracy to see reason to carry forward social projects related to areas like health, food, agriculture speedily and make sure that people like (Planning Commission deputy chairman) Montek Singh Ahluwalia gets the correct picture and figures on social issues," a member of the National Advisory Council told rediff.com. The member argued...
More »More tips for lawmakers by MJ Antony
The proposed land acquisition Bill should adopt scores of suggestions coming from judges. Few laws have drawn criticism from the Supreme Court with such regular frequency as has the Land Acquisition Act, all the more so in recent times as the weak links in the archaic law have led to continuing legal and political battles and bloodletting. Last month, the Supreme Court identified five areas of conflict arising from the inadequacies of...
More »Disparity in wages between male, female workers in rural India reduced
UPA's flagship job guarantee scheme seems to have ensured better wages for women in rural India. An NSSO survey report released earlier this week revealed that disparity in wages between male and female workers in rural India had reduced between 2004-05 when there was no national rural employment guarantee scheme and 2007-08 when the scheme was introduced by UPA-1. In 2007-08, rural women working in NREGA areas were getting 54%...
More »