-PTI WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund today described India's National Food Security Act as a landmark legislation which is an important effort to ensure that a majority of the population has access to adequate quantities of food at affordable prices. "The legislation is a landmark, representing the largest food security programme in the world, involving the distribution of subsidised grain to two-thirds of India's population of 1.2 billion," the IMF said in...
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Women's Reservation Bill Fails to Get LS Nod Again
-Outlook The fair sex got an unfair deal in the 15th Lok Sabha on the issue of reservation in legislatures despite the three top posts being occupied by women. The ambitious Women's Reservation Bill, which provides for 33 per cent reservation for women in the lower house of Parliament and state assemblies for 15 years, failed to get the nod this time too though Sonia Gandhi was the UPA Chairperson, Meira Kumar...
More »After 2 years and no changes, Whistleblowers Bill cleared
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: At the very fag end of the forgettable existence of the 15th Lok Sabha, Parliament on Friday passed the Whistleblower Protection Bill. The Rajya Sabha cleared this crucial anti-corruption law a good two years after it was passed by the Lok Sabha. The delay was not because the elders brought some new wisdom to the proposed law. In fact, the Bill, seeking to ensure the safety...
More »Whose loo? Why 600 million Indians still defecate in the open-Ierene Francis
-TheAlternative.in Over 600 million Indians have no access to toilets - if you line up the countries where open defecation is practised, India leads and also has more than twice the number as the next 18 countries with no access to toilets. The proportion is worse in rural India - where 68% of rural households don't have their own toilets (Source:NSSO, WHO). Why is open defecation an issue? Open defecation has been linked...
More »Japanese biopiracy of our Ballia barley-Latha Jishnu
-Down to Earth Japan's Sapporo brewery patents Indian barley gene without giving benefit to farmers Ballia district, the easternmost part of Uttar Pradesh, is a flood-prone area that extends towards Bihar from the confluence of the Ganga and the Ghaghra. Over decades, its farmers, mostly marginal and small, have been cultivating barley, exchanging its seeds, improving the varieties and giving these to a government project to cull the best of the lot....
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