The debate over the National Food Security Act has been reduced to a circus for political parties, NGOs and the National Advisory Council to perform verbal calisthenics. The discussion on who is entitled, who is not entitled and who should be entitled has gone on for over two years. The discourse is deteriorating into informed nit-picking. The time for debate is over; the time for decision is overdue. Let us get...

-DNA   In an attempt to curb high infant and maternal mortality rate in India, the government has decided to launch scheme from June 1 to provide free healthcare to mothers and children. The Central government has asked the states to ensure free and cashless services to all pregnant women in government hospitals as well as to sick neonates. This includes free drugs, free consumables and diagnostics, free diet during stay and free...

Still to decide on private land acquisition The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) decided on Wednesday to propose to the government that compensation for those whose land is acquired for public purposes — such as a dam, irrigation project or military installation — will be six times the registered sale deed value, including solatium. It will also recommend that those whose livelihood and shelter are adversely affected because of acquisition for...

Sticks to his decision to frame two separate laws Linking Bills at this juncture will not be proper, he says Even as the National Advisory Council accepted the suggestion of some of its members for a composite legislation on land acquisition and rehabilitation and resettlement, Union Minister of Rural Development Vilasrao Deshmukh on Wednesday spiked their suggestion and stuck to his decision to frame two separate laws during the monsoon session of...

“Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.” This quote by US President Ronald Reagan summarises the significance attributed to facts, figures and data and the need to make them freely available across servers and bandwidths. In this age of internet and mobile networks, the amount of information available to us is far more than...