The UPA-II government introduces with BJP support two anti-labour Bills, the Pension Bill and the Labour Laws Amendment Bill. ON March 24, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government managed to do what it had not been able to do in its first term – it reintroduced the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) Bill in Parliament with the support of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The objective of the Bill is...
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Lokpal Bill in monsoon session: PM
Admitting that there was "growing feeling" amongst people that present systems were ineffective in dealing with corruption, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said he hoped to bring the more stringent anti-graft Lokpal (ombudsman) Bill in the monsoon session of Parliament. Addressing bureaucrats of the country at a function here, Manmohan Singh stressed that his government was accelerating its efforts to create a systemic response to curb graft practices in India. "Our...
More »Planning Commission may lower poverty estimates by Sangeeta Singh & Nikhil Kanekal
India’s apex planning body may cap national poverty at 32% for the purpose of calculating welfare benefits in the 12th Five-year Plan that starts on 1 April 2012, it said a day before a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The development comes on a day the Supreme Court asked Montek Singh Ahluwalia to respond why it should not strike down an earlier cap of 36% poverty after the government sought...
More »Time to look at renewable energy by Praful Bidwai
The Jaitapur nuclear power project has drawn blood even before its boundary wall is ready. One person was killed in police firing on Monday, which by all accounts was unnecessary to disperse peaceful protesters. There was arson in Madban, at the site’s centre, which gutted some grass and a part of a tiny makeshift shed belonging to the Nuclear Power Corporation of India. The police went berserk and intruded into...
More »Spot the difference: Hazare vs Irom Sharmila by Rituparna Chatterjee
Irom Sharmila Chanu and Anna Hazare have one thing in common – the ability to fast indefinitely for what they perceive is right. But the similarities end there. She has been on a political fast for 11 years but her silent resilience moves you when you realize the sheer magnitude of what she is single-handedly trying to achieve. Far from the glare of studio lights of television channels and tangled wires of...
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