-The Hindu Political parties have acted as judge, jury, supplicant and advocate in their move to amend the RTI Act and remove themselves from its purview. Their rhetoric on transparency sounds more hollow now than ever. The RTI Act provides a regime of consummate transparency of "public authorities". Instead of specifying information to be disclosed, the Act mandates 100 per cent transparency subject only to a tightly defined list of exclusions under...

-PTI New Delhi: Amid differences between rural development and agriculture ministries over implementation of works under rural job scheme, a Parliamentary panel said that improper planning of jobs during farm season was causing labour availability problem in the key sector. "... Lack of proper planning of works under MNREGA without keeping in view of local agriculture practice is causing the problem of labour availability in agriculture sector," Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Contrary to the perception that the UPA government has been spending more on social sector schemes, a financial audit of the Union government's accounts for 2011-12, tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, reveals that every year, the spending has been coming down drastically on most of the major flagship programmes - by up to 63% in some cases. The largest allocation in the Budget in the last...

-The New Indian Express In 1948 when the United Nations passed the covenant ensuring the right to food, vis-à-vis the right to proper livelihood, to which India became a signatory, it did not envisage that the whole issue would be caught up in such an imbroglio - political and economic - as one witnesses today. The original covenant in article 25 ensures the "right to work and livelihood" and right to...

-The Hindu Among the 18 States which stand to lose are Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Delhi, Uttarakhand and some north-eastern States. Even as the National Food Security Bill is pending in Parliament, the Centre has conveyed to certain States that their foodgrain allocation would decline in spite of the mandatory 75 per cent rural and 50 per cent urban populations being covered under the proposed new law. Among the 18 States which...