-The Times of India   The government is set to accept the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council's recommendation to cover 75% rural and 50% urban population under a food security law, but wants to keep the percentages outside the language of the Act itself. UPA-2 is inclined to set the percentage of population covered in a notification or schedule accompanying the Act so that it can be revised by executive order...

Boommi Gowda used to fear the night. Her vision fogged by glaucoma, she could not see by just the dim glow of a kerosene lamp, so she avoided going outside where king cobras slithered freely and tigers carried off neighborhood dogs. But things have changed at Gowda's home in the remote southern village of Nada. A solar-powered lamp pours white light across the front of the mud-walled hut she shares with...

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 Hindu   Team Anna on Saturday concluded its programme of contacting political parties with a call on Congress president Sonia Gandhi ahead of Sunday's all-party meeting on the Lokpal Bill. Ms. Gandhi assured social activist Anna Hazare that she would convey his views to the government, according to Congress general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi, who was present at the meeting. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who headed the joint panel on the Lokpal...

ASHOK AGARWAL, a Senior Advocate practising in the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court, has been litigating for the right of education, primarily for those belonging to the weaker sections of society. In fact, even before the actual enactment of the Right to Education Bill, he had campaigned forcefully among policymakers to reinforce the link between out-of-school children and child labour. He was involved in several rounds of discussions...