The food ministry seems to have given up the hope of seeing the Food Security Bill passed into a law this financial year. But the delay in the rollout of one of the government's most ambitious welfare schemes will surely bring joy to mandarins at the North Block , who have been battling to rein in the government's expenditure. The food security law, which envisages subsidized grains for at least...

The proposed Privacy Bill seems skewed towards the state rather than the citizen Sometimes the best of intentions can camouflage the worst of motives. On the face of it, the government’s bid to bring in a privacy bill is a welcome move, a long-overdue measure. But after an initial approach paper prepared by lawyers and bureaucrats in November last year, the government went into a secretive huddle. Now a leaked...

The Joint Lokpal Bill Drafting Committee concludes its meetings without any agreement on major issues. ON June 21, as the five government representatives and the five civil society members of the Joint Lokpal Bill Drafting Committee ended their Deliberations after exchanging their versions of the draft Lokpal Bill, the battle lines were clearly drawn. The government was in no mood to agree with the civil society members led by Anna...

The roller-coaster ride of the government-civil society joint drafting committee on the Lokpal (ombudsman) Bill has ended in a draw, but left both sides badly injured. Whether the tie will be broken when they present their separate recommendations to a proposed all-party committee in July remains an open question. Yet, this is a good time to draw up a balance-sheet of the government's first-ever effort to take on board civil...

Optimise number of affiliated colleges under one university. Shift from affiliation to autonomy. Rank cradles. Train teachers. Implement graduate employment survey… These were some of the many smart solutions that surfaced during the maiden Deliberations on higher education between World Bank experts and Jharkhand academics here today. The daylong workshop — Higher Education in Jharkhand: the Way Forward — brought together key policy-makers, renowned academics and stakeholders under one umbrella to prepare...