In pushing for a greatly truncated PDS, the Food Security Bill proposed by the NAC, which has many right-to-food activists, undermines the PDS itself. ENSURING food security was the big promise of United Progressive Alliance-2. The promise to enact legislation to ensure a minimum quantity of affordable food to all poor households in the country was part of the election manifesto of the Congress party that leads the government. The 100-day...

A United Nations-backed conference aimed at advancing the rights of persons with disabilities concluded today with countries underscoring the need to continue building on recent momentum to ensure that the rights of the world’s estimated 650 million people with disabilities are protected and strengthened. Hundreds of delegates and civil society representatives took part in the three-day conference at UN Headquarters in New York to see how to better implement the Convention...

The discussion paper on compulsory licensing of patents will have achieved its purpose if it can lead to a proactive policy in the area of drugs and health. IN a proactive move to ensure a fair balance between protection of intellectual property rights and protection of the public interest, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry has chosen to put out a discussion...

Realising it was losing the turf war with the hyperactive Union Ministry of Environment and Forests on a subject that has become a top priority for the United Progressive Alliance government, the once comatose Tribal Affairs Ministry has, in recent weeks, suddenly begun to assert its rights over its responsibilities. The first sign of this realisation was reflected in Tribal Affairs Minister Kantilal Bhuria shooting off letters in quick succession on...

Members of various NGOs and child rights activists, working for free, compulsory and quality education for underprivileged children, on Thursday lamented the fact that formulators and writers of the Right to Education (RTE) Act had failed to include children belonging to diverse minority groups. At a state-level training for various stakeholders on the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 — also known as RTE Act — activists...