The Sonia Gandhi-led national advisory council (NAC) has won decisive victories in keeping at bay the governments attempt to regulate right to information and ensuring the pro-tribal Forest Rights Act is made more effective for its intended beneficiaries. On the national Food Security Act -- the third bone of contention between the government and NAC -- the Council at its meeting on Saturday held its ground and advocated a staggered...
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Strengthen Forest Rights Act, says National Advisory Council
Recommends guidelines to be issued by Tribal Affairs Ministry The National Advisory Council (NAC) has drawn up detailed operational guidelines, which it has recommended that the Union Tribal Affairs Ministry issue to the States for strengthening the Forest Rights Act (FRA). These guidelines can be issued under Section 12 of the FRA. One, the Gram sabhas that are called for enquiry and verification of claims should be convened at the level of...
More »Live on FM radio by Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Money makes news. When it is found, promiscuously. And when it is lost, presumptively. And when it is found to lie hidden. Also when it stands brazenly, as in election candidatures. Does hunger, to satisfy which money, income, wages — the power to purchase food — are needed, make news? Does the crisis in our agriculture make news? When Amartya Sen speaks of hunger and malnutrition, when MS Swaminathan does so...
More »Mrs Boss caught with gold bricks
The wife of a top PSU boss has been caught collecting bribe in gold bricks, the CBI said today, the charge suggesting that the corrupt remain as audacious as ever in spite of the shakedown in high places. Abhay Kumar Srivastava, the chairman and managing director of Navratna PSU Nalco, and his wife Chandni have been arrested. The CBI said Chandni took three 24-carat gold bricks weighing a kg each in...
More »Not out of the woods yet by Ashish Kothari
The promise of the FRA remains largely unfulfilled, says a committee set up by the Ministries of Environment and Forests and Tribal Affairs. IT seems hard for a government used to controlling most of India's common lands to let go of them. Even though it has passed a law mandating more decentralised governance of forests, the government itself is proving to be the biggest obstacle in its implementation. Other than in...
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