-DNA 1. The equality of women, being integral to the Constitution, its denial is a sacrilege and a constitutional violation. Sustained constitutional violations mean that governance is not in accordance with the Constitution. A fortiori, all limbs of the State - the executive, the legislature as well as the judiciary -must respect women’s rights and must treat them in a non-discriminatory manner. 2. As a primary recommendation, all marriages in India (irrespective...

A report by a parliamentary standing committee entrusted to examine the National Food Security Bill, 2011 has revived the debate on what measures India must take to end its abysmal track record of hunger and malnutrition, (See several links given below) despite successive years of high growth and record grain procurement. The draft legislation is likely to be debated in the upcoming session of Parliament, even as the recent Jaipur...

-The Times of India The Centre on Tuesday rubbished the charges made in the CAG report-based petitions alleging huge scam in coal block allocations and said it had put in place four sets of regulatory mechanism which had functioned well to monitor and take corrective measures. Responding to six questions the court had asked on a PIL filed by M L Sharma who had sought quashing of all 194 blocks of coal,...

-PTI Seeks centre's response on some regulatory measure after FDI is allowed The Supreme Court on Tuesday said that interest of small retail traders should not be affected due to foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail sector and sought response from the Centre on how it intends to safeguard their interests. A bench headed by Justice R M Lodha asked the Centre to file its response within three weeks. "What checks are there to...

-The Hindu Only 75% of MGNREGS workers have been enrolled; many without Aadhaar number denied access to benefits GOLLAPROLU (EAST GODAVARI, AP): The popular tagline for the Aadhaar-linked Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) is Aam aadmi ka paisa, aam aadmi ke haath (People’s money in their own hands). The DBT PILot project was launched in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh earlier this month, with Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh hailing the scheme...