The government is ready with a revised Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill 2010 that has kept the interest of farmers and landowners in mind, officials today asserted in the backdrop of Rahul and Sonia Gandhi’s strong pitch favouring a pro-farmer policy on the contentious issue. Officials in the Rural Development Ministry today hinted that the revised Bill may contain provisions that will allow for better and adequate compensation for those whose land...

Participating in the second meeting of the Chief Ministers' Working Group on Food and Public Distribution here, Chattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh on Wednesday asked the Centre to make the public distribution system (PDS) universal in the Left-Wing Extremism-affected districts, as well as, all Scheduled Tribe and Scheduled Caste families living in tribal areas to do away with “errors of exclusion.” Mr. Singh is a member of the working group, set...

Back in 2005, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS), now called Mahatma Gandhi NREGS or MGNREGS, was offered as a tool to liberate Dalits and weaker sections in rural India by giving them employment. Five years down the line, a Union Ministry of Rural Development-sponsored investigation has found that the scheme has become “yet another instrument in the consolidation of the existing exploitative power structure”. The investigation report, which became available...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the Supreme Court should not go “into the realm of policymaking”. This was his response at an interaction with newspaper editors here to the recent order by the apex court that the government give food free to the poor. The court’s directive had caused the government some embarrassment but it had been uncertain whether the Centre would legally challenge it. While appearing to be unwilling to...

Competing for praise and popularity is as common between Ministries as are turf wars. When officers from different Ministries get the rare opportunity to meet and discuss matters of shared concern, they behave like alert soldiers who are expected to fight for every inch of territory. I had an exposure to this phenomenon while working for a Planning Commission sub-committee on vocational education for skill development. Vocational and technical training...