The government is examining the possibility of turning its two important social sector programmes into universal schemes covering the unorganised sector in phases, taking a cue from the successful extension of a health insurance plan to 23 million poor families. The labour ministry will prepare a feasibility plan together with the rural and finance ministries that run the old age pension scheme for the below poverty line people and the Aam...

“Declare State GM organisms-free on the lines of M.P., Bihar” Farmer groups here on Sunday demanded that Rajasthan be declared a genetically modified (GM) organisms-free State on the lines of Madhya Pradesh, which has recently decided to prohibit any environmental release, including field trials, of GM seeds and crops in view of their safety and impact on human beings and environment still being in doubt. Madhya Pradesh is the second State in...

Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan said here on Friday that people's movements in Kerala and other States had forced the Centre to change its stand at the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. Reports and photographs taken to the Convention from Kerala had also helped in arriving at the decision. “It was not just a CAMPAign against the Centre but also one to create awareness of the dangers of the pesticide,” the...

Gram Sabhas given equal say in Forest Rights Act Bamboo had been declared minor forest produce recently Transit passes to allow villagers to use, sell bamboo within the community “Today, bamboo is liberated,” proclaimed Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh at a function here on Wednesday, where he handed over to Mendha's community leader Devaji Tofa a transit pass that would allow the sale and transportation of bamboo within...

Patriarchal societies are part of the problem of altered sex ratios, female infanticide and foeticide. This needs to be acknowledged and changed. India's sex ratio, among children aged 0-6 years, is alarming. The ratio has declined from 976 females (for every 1000 males) in 1961 to 914 in 2011. Every national census has documented a decline in the ratio, signalling a ubiquitous trend. Preliminary data from the 2011 census have recorded...