-The Times of India   Exactly a decade after farmers in Palnadu region sold their kidneys to clear their mounting debts, poverty-stricken women from the backward Palnadu region have fallen prey to clinical trials by a Hyderabad-based pharma company. The clinical tests on human beings, reportedly without the requisite permission of the state government, came to light on Thursday when some of the victims fell seriously ill in Piduguralla town. Many of...

Gearing for the challenge of implementing the proposed Food Security Bill, Union Minister of State for Food and Public Distribution K.V. Thomas has decided to hold a conference of Chief Ministers to seek their views and cooperation. Mr. Thomas toldThe Hindu that he had made a presentation of the proposed Bill to Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh...

After land acquisition and food security, the National Advisory Council (NAC) has set its sights farther, this time to monitor programme implementation at panchayats. The council led by Congress president Sonia Gandhi feels the ministry of statistics and programme implementation is not doing enough to monitor the panchayat programmes, while panchayati raj ministry has little say since most programmes are out of its purview. Monitoring panchayats would be part of an...

The West Bengal assembly on Tuesday passed a bill to return to some of the original owners their land in Singur, which had been acquired by the previous Left Front government for the Nano project. In doing so, chief minister Mamata Banerjee kept her pre-poll promise to the electorate, which gave her Trinamool Congress, a resounding majority in the elections. The Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Bill cites “non-commissioning of the...

The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) has written to the Manmohan Singh government on the issue of manual scavenging: in a letter dated June 9, it has made out a case once again for a new law to end manual scavenging. The letter points out that in a resolution on October 23, 2010, the NAC had expressed its anguish at the official failure to end manual scavenging in the country...