Prime minister Manmohan Singh has enlisted the Planning Commission's support to reconcile varying views on the proposed food security legislation . Singh has asked the commission to suggest the best possible framework for the Food Security Act after several members of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) objected to the suggestion of a government panel to restrict coverage of the ambitious scheme. The proposed legislation seeks to provide legal guarantee of...

A meeting will be held here on April 13 to further discuss the recent murder of MGNREGA whistle blower Niyamat Ansari by Maoists in Latehar district to be attended by human rights activists and civil society members. The long-standing debate on Ansari's character and the role played by him has drawn attention of human rights activists from all over the country. The MGNREGA activist was killed at a time when he...

A group of citizens including several senior scientists has called on the Centre to review its nuclear power policy for appropriateness, safety, costs, and public acceptance, and conduct an independent and transparent safety audit of its nuclear facilities. The group, including P. Balaram, director of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, economist Jean Dreze, and A. Gopalakrishnan, the former director of the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, has said that while this...

For a poor boy from the dark heart of tribal India, constable Kartam Surya has done well. An 8th class pass from the village of Misma in South Bastar’s Dantewada district — in the so-called Maoist 'liberated zone' in Chhattisgarh — 26-year-old Surya makes sure he gives his father, a marginal farmer scratching a living from the land, enough money to live in peace and comfort. "Surya is a good son...

Aruna Roy, a Magsaysay award winner former bureaucrat, was closely involved in the drafting of the Right to Information (RTI) Act. As a member of the UPA's National Advisory Council (NAC), among other things, she has been conveying to the government the views of civil society on the proposed changes in the transparency act. On the sidelines of 3rd national convention of National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, held...