Any Indian denied food security rights will be able to seek quick legal redress if the government accepts a suggestion from the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council. The council wants the National Food Commission, a watchdog against any violation of the National Food Security Bill, to be given all the powers of a civil court. Its verdicts are to be binding on the government. Such a measure will help provide quicker and...

As the Lokpal Bill gets mired in a tortuous birthing, the debate shifts to who exactly has the right to pass a law Why Politicians Hate Civil Society     * Unelected activists stealing Parliament’s right to make laws, undercutting role of parliamentarians     * Demands like an all-powerful Lokpal directly impact political-bureaucratic class and the status quo     * Rigid deadlines, fasts unto death to press home issues are akin to holding government...

-PTI   The head of South Africa’s powerful federation of trade unions has asked the government to consider replicating the model of India’s rural employment guarantee scheme MNERGA to address the huge unemployment problem in the country. Mr Zwelinzima Vavi, head of the powerful Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), believes that the model used in India could also work in South Africa. Speaking at a University of Johannesburg seminar around constitutional...

Beginning his day-long hunger strike at Rajghat to protest against corruption and the recent police brutality, the 73-year-old-Gandhi devotee Anna Hazare said that if the Lokpal Bill was not passed, he would fast unto death at Jantar Mantar from August 16. Anna described his movement as the second battle of independence but underlined Gandhi's non-violent path. He said his Wednesday fast was to condemn the police action on Ramdev's supporters at...

There is a photograph of the Second Round Table Conference in London, which shows every person in the room looking at the camera except for Mohandas K Gandhi. The maharajas, the leaders of the Depressed Classes and the Muslim League, the officers of His Majesty’s Government — all have their face turned at the photographer come to capture them. Not Gandhi, who sits in his chair, wrapped in a shawl,...