Some time ago, newspapers in Britain carried full-page advertisements from the curiously named British Pig Association. This consortium of pig farmers was clamouring publicly that the supermarket chains were squeezing the farmers dry. Alongside them, Britain’s dairy farmers complained that a supermarket cartel was paring down their prices, while production costs went up and up. These farmers too have powerful lobbies; they are still in business. To this end, Britain, like...

-PTI   The Food Ministry has moved a Cabinet note on the National Food Security Bill which aims to provide legal entitlement to subsidised Foodgrains to two- third of the country's population, sources said. The proposed bill, which would cost the government exchequer Rs 94,973 crore a year in subsidies, may be taken up for the Cabinet discussion soon as the Centre is keen on introducing it in the ongoing session of...

-Express News Service   In what could strengthen the case of those seeking lifting of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) from parts of J&K and insurgency-hit North-East, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has said the AFSPA “remains in force in Jammu & Kashmir and the North-Eastern States, conferring an impunity that often leads to the violation of human rights”. This (continuation of AFSPA), a report prepared by the NHRC...

The 11th five-year plan promised the nation “inclusive growth”. It marked a departure from the earlier official position that the “benefits of growth” would automatically “trickle down” to the poor, and that if growth was not actually benefiting the poor, then the reason lay in its not being high enough. The 11th plan, by contrast, conceded that the “benefits of growth” did not automatically “trickle down”, but argued that growth...

 Having publicly objected to the Communal Violence Bill drafted by the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC), the Narendra Modi-led Gujarat government has now sent its strong objections to Sonia’s pet project, National Food Security Bill, terming it against the sanctity of the federal structure of the Constitution. Gujarat has objected to provisions that allow the Centre to prescribe terms and conditions for the appointment of district grievance redressal officers, empowers...