With its politically crucial food security agenda facing time-consuming scrutiny by a parliamentary panel, the government is considering the option of rolling out key elements of the programme through an executive decision that can be later subsumed by an act of Parliament. Concerned the bill that negotiated divides within the government and involved discussions with the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council might be delayed till later this year, the Centre could...

-Righttoinformation.info   The NCPRI, in collaboration with Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS), JOSH, Pardarshita and National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW)organised camps for public consultations and registering grievances in Delhi. Two days camps on the 15th and 16th of December were held in Malviya Nagar, Trilokpuri, Nandnagri and Takiyan Kalekhan. The camps concluded in an Open Forum with representatives from political parties and citizen groups to discuss the essential features of a Grievance...

If we get it right, the Food Security Bill carries the potential to alter the destinies of millions of India's poor and disadvantaged people, by assuring them as a legal right sufficient food to live with dignity. It was approved by the Cabinet after over two years of intense, sometimes fractious debate. Opinion in the Cabinet itself was reportedly divided around the proposed law. Gaping divisions persist, even as the...

“Total abolition of child labour central to human development” The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has ordered a survey of child labour in five districts of Uttar Pradesh, where a large number of children are employed in carpet industry and other labour intensive units. The survey will include data on the number of children rescued and action taken for their rehabilitation. The survey directive was given by a jury...

A report of the National People's Tribunal on the 2008 riots in Kandhamal, Orissa, is out. The report that runs into 197 pages points out that the brutality of the violence falls within the definition of 'torture' under international law, particularly the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.   According to the tribunal, headed by Justice A P Shah, communal forces used religious conversions as an issue for political mobilisation...