Is drought being used as an excuse to delay the national Food Security Act? An informal network of organizations and individuals involved in the Right to Food Campaign believe so. The campaign groups are demanding that a national consultative process on an improved draft bill must be started immediately so that the proposed Food Security Act could be passed as soon as possible. The campaigners also demand that exports of...

Women and child development minister Krishna Tirath has ordered her ministry to initiate fresh consultations on a proposed law criminalising sexual harassment at the workplace, effectively delaying further a bill ready for cabinet approval. Tirath has asked the ministry to hold fresh consultations with women’s rights groups and lawyers who have raised concerns that the bill does not adequately protect victims of sexual harassment, The Telegraph has learnt. The minister’s...

Civil society's demand to appoint Kiran Bedi as the next Chief Information Commissioner has started an interesting debate. It has several dimensions. One section of media, albeit very small, is projecting that there is intense lobbying going on for Bedi. The word "lobby" has unholy connotations and at times, implies vested interests. Is it that one day I, Aamir Khan, Anna Hazare, Subhash Chandra, Baba Ramdev, Madhu Trehan, Shabana Azmi,...

A fact finding team of many civil society organizations has reported widespread occurrences of murders, tortures and cases of police atrocities in Chhattisgarh in the name of combating Naxalism. It is also being alleged that in the name of their own security, journalists are being stopped from going to so called “combat zones” where security forces have launched an Operation Greenhunt to flush out armed Maoists.  Fifteen members of the...

This is a statement sent in by V.R. Krishna Iyer, a former Judge of the Supreme Court, who is based in Kochi: Some of the provisions of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that India recently signed with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) will weaken India’s, and specifically Kerala’s, rubber sector because Malaysia and a few other countries that are a part of the ASEAN will flood the...