Disability activists held a candlelight vigil outside the residence of Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Mukul Wasnik on Saturday demanding that more disabled people be made part of the committee for drafting the new disability Act. “After months of relentless advocacy by disabled rights organisations, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment has finally embarked upon a historic task of drafting a new law to replace the outdated Disability Act,...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday said the government was in favour of amending laws, if need be, to make them more disabled-friendly. He gave this assurance to a delegation of differently-abled persons who met him in Parliament. “The Prime Minister was extremely sympathetic to the demands of the disabled persons and said their demands were genuine,” pointed out CPI (M) leader Brinda Karat, who led the delegation. The Prime Minister interacted...

A PIL in the Supreme Court on Monday made a strong pitch for utilising the elaborate ‘Census 2011’ mechanism to end the 80 long years of speculation about the exact population of other backward classes (OBC), which had been the basis for 27% reservation in jobs and educational institutions. PIL petitioner Kishore Govind Kanhere through counsel D K Garg said that while the Mandal Commission estimated that OBCs constituted 52%...

The proposed Food Security Bill should adopt a three-pronged strategy that constitutes a Universal Public Distribution System for all, low-cost foodgrains to the needy, and convergence in the delivery of nutrition safety net programmes.  In his latest budget speech, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced: “We are now ready with the draft Food Security Bill which will be placed in the public domain very soon.” Although no official draft has been...

The National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) has said that the budget proposals for 2010-11 have ignored the most vulnerable sections of society, particularly the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and the Scheduled Tribes (STs). Though there is an increase in the budgets for the Ministries of Tribal Affairs and Social Justice and Empowerment, the overall denial continues to be substantial this year — over Rs.25, 000 crore, said N.Paul Divakar,...