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...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday gave Union Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh the green signal for his proposal to integrate in one bill the provisions for land acquisition and rehabilitation and resettlement. After calling on Dr. Singh for the first time since he assumed office, Mr. Ramesh told The Hindu that he had sought the Prime Minister's approval for a single Bill to cover the two issues, whereas his...

New Delhi : Notwithstanding objections by many National Advisory Council (NAC) members to cash transfer-based food subsidy, the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) has approved to provide for “cash transfers and food coupons”, among other options, in the proposed food security Bill. The EGoM, which met under Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s chairmanship earlier this week, also approved “leveraging” aadhaar for unique identity numbers for “proper targeting” of food entitlements. Section 31(3)(g) of...

On Monday, the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, cleared a version of the food security Bill that accepts several provisions recommended by the Sonia Gandhi headed-National Advisory Council (NAC) and rejects some others. Predictably, public attention has concentrated on the latter. Unnoticed among the NAC recommendations that have been accepted by the government, therefore, lies a radical new proposal that has the potential to re-arrange...

The communal violence bill prepared by the National Advisory Council (NAC) seeks fundamentally to change how the government deals with violence against minorities. The bill focuses on religious and linguistic minorities as well the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but religious minorities are at its heart. The bill has some undeniable strengths, but it suffers from two analytically fatal flaws. First, it places excessive faith in the state machinery. Though...