-The Hindu Legal researcher Usha Ramanathan speaks about the the modified draft Bill which continues to raise several critical concerns relating to privacy, ethical usage of DNA samples and DNA database. This week, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) uploaded a slightly modified draft of the Human DNA Profiling Bill on its website, opening up the controversial Bill, now tabled in Parliament, for Public Scrutiny. Legal researcher Usha Ramanathan, a member of the Committee...
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Where is the caste data? -M Vijayanunni
-The Hindu By abdicating its responsibility to conduct the caste census and turning it into a poverty-cum-caste survey, the previous dispensation at the Centre made the exercise casual and perfunctory. This has been proved by the way the survey has turned out. In August 2010, Finance Minister and head of the Group of Ministers, Pranab Mukherjee, made a reassuring statement in Parliament on behalf of the government of India, that there would...
More »Socio Economic Caste Census: In villages, one in three households in poverty; over a fifth SC/STs -Ruhi Tewari
-The Indian Express Information was collected on a range of parameters at the individual and household levels like occupation, education, disability, religion, SC/ST status and employment. Nearly one in every three rural households still have an uncertain source of income and continue to live in one-room kutcha houses, according to the findings of the first national Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC). Officials told The Indian Express that these households — 31.26 per...
More »Cutting the Food Act to the bone -Biraj Patnaik
-The Hindu Two years after vociferously arguing for an expansion of the provisions of the National Food Security Act, the BJP in government is bleeding it with a thousand cuts, both fiscal and otherwise When Parliament passed the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in 2013, it had already become one of the most debated pieces of legislation in decades. Those for and against it had fought it out across yards of space...
More »Rajasthan moves to ‘privatise' basic health facilities -Kundan Pandey
-Down to Earth Attempts to implement the PPP model have failed in many states. Activists plan to oppose the decision While Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje is at the centre of a high decibel media debate over her alleged association with Lalit Modi, one critical development in her state has slipped through the cracks and escaped scrutiny. On Tuesday, the state Cabinet gave its nod to the running of primary health...
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