The Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council (NAC) has managed to have its way on key demands on the food security bill. Bolstered by the Congress president’s “resolve”, the panel will go ahead and draft its own version of the bill and hope that Sonia’s veto will persuade the Centre to discard its stated objections and adopt the NAC’s draft as law. “Yeh tho hona hi hai,” Sonia reportedly said. A panel member...

By stubbornly overruling the National Advisory Council, the government risks defeating its purpose as a body that speaks for the poor and the disadvantaged. HAS the Manmohan Singh government begun to regard the National Advisory Council (NAC) as an adversary who should be undermined? Going by their exchanges on key issues such as food security, wages under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), and the implementation of the Scheduled Tribes...

Although finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had promised food security and inclusive growth in his budget speech last year, hunger continues to stalk over 300 million citizens of the country. India slipped to 67th place in the Global Hunger Index 2010 rankings of 122 countries prepared by International Food Policy Research Institute. An Oxford University report said that 410 million Indians live in poverty. While there may be nit-picking over the...

Demand stronger policies and end to disinvestment of public sector A “Workers' March to Parliament” in the Capital on Wednesday saw a heavy turnout of workers of various central trade unions protesting against price rise, unemployment, labour law violations and disinvestment. The participating organisations included the Centre of Indian Trade Unions, the Indian National Trade Union Congress, the All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), the Hind Mazdoor Sabha, the All-India United Trade...

Legislation targets poor and vulnerable sections among whom malnutrition was particularly high Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday that the government was committed to bring to Parliament a Right to Food Act which would serve as a viable safety net for the poor and the vulnerable sections among whom malnutrition was particularly high. Addressing an international conference on ‘Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health,' the Prime Minister said such...