A pilot survey finding that 25-30% of the rural population can be automatically excluded from food security entitlements for below poverty line population might help forge a consensus between the government and the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council. The "automatic exclusion" criteria, devised on the basis of the N C Saxena report on methodology for a BPL census, is more liberal than the "bare bones" approach adopted by the government in...

A state Congress leaders' delegation that called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh accused Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi of siphoning off funds meant for Beneficiaries of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. The delegation of Congress MLAs, MPs and others, headed by Leader of Opposition Shaktisinh Gohil and state party president Arjun Modhwadia, also told the prime minister that the state government had failed to implement various schemes announced...

Assam’s performance on NREGA implementation remained a matter of concern for the year April 2009 – March 2010. NREGA is to guarantee 100 days of guaranteed employment of the rural communities of Assam but research showed a different picture. North East Social Trust (NEST), a voluntary organization working for the community development for last eight years in Assam, carried out a research last year in collaboration with the Indo-Global Social...

Accord highest priority to inclusion of SCs and STs, says Council Ministry's methodology will result in some of the most vulnerable slipping through cracks: NAC Exclusion could prove politically disastrous to United Progressive Alliance The Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council celebrated on Thursday its first major success, in its second avatar, in blocking the government's efforts to dilute the landmark Right to Information Act. But, if that was the good news, the bad news...

The National Advisory Council today won a victory over the government with Sonia Gandhi stressing the inclusion of eight “highly vulnerable” groups among the priority Beneficiaries of the food security bill. Sources said the rural development ministry, headed by Vilasrao Deshmukh, had been resisting the panel’s recommendation for a new category of households that are “highly vulnerable to food insecurity”. The eight groups identified by Sonia are: “Particularly vulnerable” tribal groups; Mahadalits; Households headed by...