NAC failed to address hunger and malnutrition: Right to Food Campaign Current proposals only offer window-dressing to present Targeted Public Distribution System Arguments suggesting lack of resources cannot be accepted, wrote Campaign members The Right to Food Campaign activists are “extremely disappointed” with the recommendations of the National Advisory Council (NAC) on the proposed Food Security Bill and have said they would continue their struggle for a Comprehensive Food Security Act. Urging the NAC...

Few will take very seriously the undertaking given by the government in the Supreme Court that River Ganga will be pure and free of pollution by 2020. Similar commitments were made to the public 25 years ago when, in 1985, the Ganga Action Plan (GAP) to clean this most treasured of the sub-continent’s rivers was launched. Even after spending several thousand crores of rupees on the project, the Ganga is...

The SC on Friday wanted to know Centre’s response to a petitioner’s allegation that over 7 crore below poverty line (BPL) families have been left out of the ambit of the public distribution system (PDS) and deprived of subsidised foodgrains. A Bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma asked Attorney General G E Vahanvati, who was busy in another court, to respond to this charge by November 11. Petitioner NGO...

The Supreme Court Friday asked the central government why foodgrains it had procured but could not preserve because of inadequate storage capacity could not be given to the poor. "Procurement of adequate foodgrains is essential to provide food security and to protect the interest of the farmers. All through our anxiety has been that the procured foodgrains be properly preserved," said the bench of Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice Deepak Verma. However,...

After creating a huge controversy by claiming that foreign patients who were treated in India developed antibiotic resistance, authors of the superbug New Delhi metallo-B-lactamase-1 (NDM-1) bacteria study published in the United Kingdom-based medical journal The Lancet now say that poor sanitation and unregulated antibiotic use presented an immense challenge and should be of great concern to the Indian health authorities and the World Health Organisation. Responding to queries in the...