The NAC proposals for the food security bill are narrow and lack in vision. What is needed is a comprehensive bill with universalisation of PDS and a focus on child malnutrition.   There was much excitement when food security became one of the issues in the manifestos of most major political parties in the run up to the 2009 General Elections. With burgeoning food stocks, double-digit food inflation, stagnant malnutrition rates, declining...

The Right to Food Campaign said on Thursday that it was “extremely disappointed” with the recommendations of the National Advisory Council (NAC) on the proposed Food Security Bill and that it would continue its struggle for a Comprehensive Food Security Act. Urging the NAC to “reconsider” its decisions, the Campaign said that the main objective of the proposals seems to be to minimise the budgetary and foodgrains burden of the [proposed]...

KEY TRENDS   • Section 105 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013, which provides for excluding 13 Central legislation, including Land Acquisition (Mines) Act 1885, Atomic Energy Act, 1962, Railway Act 1989, National Highways Act 1956 and Metro Railways (Construction of Works) Act, 1978, from its purview, has been amended for payment of compensation with rigours $ • The amendments have now...

The 2010 Seeds Bill that has been introduced in Parliament does address some of the major concerns in the aborted 2004 version, but strangely a number of important correctives – on regulation, consistency and punishment – that had been incorporated in the 2008 version (which lapsed in 2009) have now been modified or dropped altogether. What forces are pushing the government to act against the interests of India’s farmers? The third...

For the first time, a job quota will be thrust on the private sector if the government accepts a panel’s recommendation for reservations for the disabled and turns it into law. The government-instituted committee has suggested extending to the private sector the 3 per cent reservation for the physically challenged that now exists in government jobs. It also wants a 5 per cent quota introduced for disabled students in private educational institutions...