The National Advisory Council's recommendations on the National Food Security Bill are in danger of being brushed aside. It is the fate of most advisory committees that the government accepts whatever advice suits its purposes and ignores the rest. The first version of the National Advisory Council (NAC-1) managed to avoid that fate to some extent, due to favourable circumstances. NAC-1 was able to persuade the government to enact the...

The Central Information Commission (CIC), the final appellate authority for the Right to Information (RTI) Act, has asked the Planning Commission to include disclosure norms in all future public-private-partnership (PPP) projects undertaken by the Centre and the state governments. Chief Information Commissioner Satyananda Mishra has written to Planning Commission deputy-chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia to incorporate disclosure norms, so that any project which has the participation of private firms and concessionaires come...

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Friday described as “highly unfortunate” the Supreme Court judgment upholding the Kerala High Court order banning public meetings and rallies on roadsides. The ruling, coupled with earlier restrictions on demonstrations and strikes, did not augur well for a democracy, the party's Polit Bureau said in a statement. It was a common practice for political parties and other public organisations to hold meetings on roadsides. Since...

The headlines in the media, the constant talk of how deep corruption has sunk in our body politic and the nefarious role played by ill-gotten contributions to political parties is a spectre, haunting the public all the time. But why is the government still not persuaded to seriously consider enacting an effectively genuine Lokpal Legislation to deal with this menace of corruption? If the draft of the Lokpal Bill 2010 is...

Education reforms, that were expected to be ushered in Karnataka’s schools following the landmark Right to Education (RTE) Legislation, will have to wait. It has emerged that financial and procedural delays will push implementation of key provisions of the Act to next year. The deadlock over funding and delay in preparation of rules for the implementation of the RTE Act means that 25 pc quota in schools for students from disadvantaged...