The age-old debate of whether the PM should be brought under the Lokpal has returned to the centre of discussion at the highest echelons as a group of ministers considers the anti-corruption mechanism. The GoM, headed by Pranab Mukherjee, is laying out UPA-2's roadmap to fight corruption, as it reels under an unprecedented onslaught by gigantic scams all around. Sources said the GoM, in its upcoming meeting, would look at the Lokpal...

By stubbornly overruling the National Advisory Council, the government risks defeating its purpose as a body that speaks for the poor and the disadvantaged. HAS the Manmohan Singh government begun to regard the National Advisory Council (NAC) as an adversary who should be undermined? Going by their exchanges on key issues such as food security, wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), and the implementation of the Scheduled Tribes...

The promise of the FRA remains largely unfulfilled, says a committee set up by the Ministries of Environment and Forests and Tribal Affairs. IT seems hard for a government used to controlling most of India's common lands to let go of them. Even though it has passed a law mandating more decentralised governance of forests, the government itself is proving to be the biggest obstacle in its implementation. Other than in...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the government is trying to introduce the proposed National Food Security Bill that seeks to provide a legal guarantee for cheaper foodgrains to the poor, in the Budget session of Parliament. "...we hope to bring to this session of Parliament the National Food Security Bill, which would give the people the right to food as the constitutional right," Singh told Rajya Sabha while replying...

Trade unions staged a protest today in Delhi against the sharp rise in prices and a Prime Minister who they claimed was “indifferent” towards working class interests. The unions, including the Congress-backed INTUC, broke convention by handing a memorandum stating their demands to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar rather than Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Such demands are usually first brought before the government. “The Prime Minister has done nothing about our demands. It...