-The Indian Express The Congress’s long-deferred promise, the food security bill, has been cleared by the cabinet and will now be debated and refined in Parliament. For all its formidable complexity, the draft bill is evasive on some of the fundamentals, like exactly who will be served by the subsidy. Though it has moved away from a narrowly targeted, tightly rationed approach and now intends to make cheap foodgrain readily available to...

Besides taking into account the different viewpoints of parties on modalities of inclusion of the office of Prime Minister in the Lokpal Bill and the scope of the proposed ombudsman over the CBI and the CVC, the Union Cabinet would take into consideration the ‘sense of the House' resolution adopted by Parliament in August committing itself to three specific issues raised by social activist Anna Hazare. On August 27, Parliament urged...

The government is going to make a final attempt to push Sonia Gandhi’s pet legislation, the Food Security Bill, at the Cabinet meeting this Sunday. Cabinet approval is vital if the Bill is to be introduced in Parliament within the few remaining days of this session. This could possibly be the last session before Assembly elections in five states. Food Minister K V Thomas told Business Standard, “We are trying to introduce...

Indian traders reject FDI in multi-brand retail and emphasise the need for a policy to regulate the labour-intensive sector. TRADERS across the country responded angrily to the Union Cabinet's decision to allow 51 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail trade, disproving the arguments of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government and the assessment of corporate India, which had tried hard to make it appear that traders and...

-The Telegraph   Two prominent leaders of India Inc have slammed the way Parliament has virtually been locked down by “misconceived and unfortunate” protests against foreign investment in retail — a decision they termed “an essential part of India’s growth story”. The concerns and an appeal to farmers, consumers and common people have been flagged in an open letter by Ashok Ganguly and Deepak Parekh. Ganguly, a Rajya Sabha MP, is a former...