The Sonia-Gandhi led National Advisory Council is pushing to amend the Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008 to make it more inclusive and include a comprehensive social security package. The council, which met last month, pitched for a security package that would contain health insurance, maternity assistance, a life-cum-disability insurance scheme and a pension plan that it proposed should be provided through a single window backed by an inter-ministerial committee consisting...

Ramaswamy R. Iyer, former Secretary, Union Ministry of Water Resources, has been a consistent critic of the idea of interlinking rivers (ILR). In this interview, he shares his concerns about the Supreme Court's judgment directing the government to implement the project, and explains why it is deeply flawed. Excerpts In your article in “The Hindu”, you have claimed that the government's stand on the project is ambiguous. The amicus curiae has,...

Two years after they were implemented in rest of India   Nearly two years after the legislation was implemented in the rest of the country on April 1, 2010, the West Bengal Government has now framed rules for implementing the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009. In keeping with the provisions of the Act, the age of admissions to Class I across the State has been raised from the...

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan today ordered a CBI investigation into last week’s murder of IPS officer Narendra Kumar, allegedly by mining mafia. Chauhan said he was responding to an appeal by Madhurani, the slain officer’s widow who is an IAS officer in the state, and not clamours from the Congress. The Opposition party has been demanding a probe by the agency and called a bandh today to protest the...

Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Tuesday announced to hand over the probe into the killing of IPS officer Narendra Singh to the Central Bureau of Investigation. Narendra Kumar was brutally crushed to death by a tractor allegedly by the 'mining mafia' in Morena district of Madhya Pradesh on March 8. The opposition Congress had stalled the proceedings of the House and forced an adjournment demanding a CBI probe into...