Mother Teresa's path was a unique one. While she never deviated from her faith, she reached out to millions of her special constituency, the deprived and the dying, recognising their faces to be the face of her God. A few weeks ago I visited one of Mother Teresa's Sisters who was admitted for surgery in the PGI hospital in Chandigarh. Haryana Chief Secretary Urvashi Gulati and the Principal Secretary to the...

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) — at the initiative of which the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme was rolled out in UPA-I — is taking a fresh look at how to strengthen it. The NAC wants the scheme to move from its “relief work mode” to one that would blend “natural resources and labour to build productive assets.” When the NAC meets here on Thursday, the Deep...

In the wake of Dreze quitting NAC, Mander vows to fight for changes. Differences between the National Advisory Council (NAC) and the government have come out in the open over the Food Security Bill, which was approved by a Group of Ministers this month. While Jean Dreze, who had earlier quit the working group on food security after recommendations by the members were diluted by the NAC itself, chose to quit the...

New tensions are emerging between the government and its think tank, with the food ministry making major changes to a National Advisory Council (NAC) draft of a new law slated to become the blockbuster social-security scheme of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s troubled second tenure. Key provisions of the national food security Bill, 2011, due to be introduced in Parliament’s next session starting 2 August, and estimated to cost the...

-IANS   Hundreds of thousands of people in Bihar are living in fear after heavy rains caused several rivers to swell and flood over 100 villages, officials said Monday. The Bagmati river breached its embankment in Muzaffarpur district, while the rising waters in the Gandak and Kosi rivers are also posing a serious threat. "Bagmati river breached its embankment near Basghatta village in Muzaffarpur, creating panic in dozens of villages as the flood...