It is unusual for Congress chief ministers to say no to Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi, but some of them have gathered the courage to oppose Gandhi's dream project.
This is her second intervention, seeking that work done under NREGA be treated as scheduled employment under the Minimum Wages Act.
The Minimum Wages Act will be amended to enact a new centrally set minimum, in the wake of the National Advisory Council's suggestion on asymmetries in this regard between states on payments for work done on schemes under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
The National Advisory Council headed by Sonia Gandhi favoured drastic amendments to the Communal Violence Bill and recommended the creation of a national authority to check communal and sectarian violence. This was the view expressed by most members of the NAC at its meeting chaired by Gandhi. At its next meeting, the NAC is expected to deliberate on how a national authority could set up within the framework of the Constitution.
The government is likely to give a legal right to food to both priority and general categories of the population under the proposed National Food Security Act, as suggested by the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC).
Social activists, led by National Advisory Council member Aruna Roy, on Saturday slammed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's observations on the Right To Information Act, alleging it signals support from the "highest quarters" to those keen on diluting the law. The "concerns expressed by the PM will support and pass a signal to those who want to dilute and weaken the Act that they have support from the highest quarters," a statement signed by several RTI activists said.
No government department seems to have any information about the tours and travels undertaken by the United Progressive Alliance Chairperson Sonia Gandhi as a Right To Information application kept moving to different ministries without any substantial response.
NGOs have acquired a certain critical mass and are increasingly becoming powerful voices in public discourse.
The big budget and big boom National Food Security Bill, which will be to UPA II what the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and the Right To Information Act were to UPA I, could not be cleared by the Union Cabinet on Tuesday and has been deferred to be taken up in its next meeting.
The Land Acquisition Bill, which was being pushed by Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council, is set for further delay with the controversial matter being referred to a Group of Ministers because of the opposition by a number of Cabinet ministers.
The foodgrain guarantee is part of the proposed National Food Security Bill.
The proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA) may have to be put off to 2012 due to financial constraints, going by a recent Planning Commission document which points out that additional resources of Rs 77,000 crore will be required to implement the programme.
States may set it higher, not lower; planned link to cost of living.
Former Union panchayat raj minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, lately in the news for denouncing the Commonwealth Games, is aiming his guns much closer to the United Progressive Alliance government's heart, at the way it is implementing the flagship National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
Responding to Anna Hazare's complaint against her "colleagues", Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday assured him that she does not support "politics of smear campaign" and that she was strongly committed to the institution of Lokpal.
Today, public policy projects itself as pro-farmer but it does it half-heartedly, complains Swaminathan.
The new Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change, has been set up by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research's Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security program.
Singh claimed the ICCR chairmanship is not an office of profit and in the past, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and P V Narasimha Rao had occupied this post when they were external affairs ministers.
One more woman died on Saturday and four others were battling for their lives after they were allegedly administered contaminated intravenous fluids in two government hospitals in Jodhpur, where 13 maternal deaths have taken place in last 11 days.
Shashank Shukla, currently pursuing second year of the Teach for India (TFI) programme has helped set up five homeless adult shelters across Delhi in the last few months and is also running three existing residential homes for children.
In the first sign of dissent within the ruling UPA government, Agriculture & Food Minister Sharad Pawar on Wednesday indicated that covering two-thirds of the population under the proposed Food Security Bill was not feasible.
Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy on Tuesday filed an FIR in New Delhi against United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi and members of the National Advisory Council' (which is headed by Gandhi) 'for committing offences of propagating hate against the Hindu community by circulating for enacting as law a draft bill described as Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill, 2011.'
In an apparent dig at Anna Hazare's campaign for Jan Lokpal Bill, National Advisory Council member Aruna Roy on Monday said one has the right to dissent in a democracy but not to overrule the functioning of Parliament and its multifarious structures.
On a day when a full-page email interview with the prime minister appeared in the Hindustan Times, the National Advisory Council, chaired by Sonia Gandhi, on Friday slammed the United Progressive Alliance government for not implementing a score of its recommendations, including food security to all, made in the past two years.
The food security Bill is likely to adopt a three-pronged strategy to ensure food for all, particularly for the most vulnerable sections of the society. The National Advisory Council (NAC) in its initial discussions on the Bill had talked about a universalised scheme.
Cash or food, which will better benefit the poor? This deceptively simple looking question is currently at the centre of a sharply bitter dispute.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has refused to endorse any law that leaves the job of buying 70 per cent of the land to the private sector.
With Congress president Sonia Gandhi appointed the chairperson of the National Advisory Council, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday night claimed she has become part of the Union government and sought to bring her in the firing line for the acts of 'omission and commission' of the Centre.
Perturbed over huge wastage of food on social events in the country, the government has said that it will study the "one-dish" law of Pakistan and similar legislations of other countries to deal with the problem.
Grain stocks in the current procurement season will be enough to feed all those who go hungry, and the FCI only needs to invest in proper storage facilities.
Main difference has been on including people above the poverty line in the Food Security Bill.
Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Monday claimed that India Against Corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal had approached him in the past to push his name for a position in the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council.
Members of the National Advisory Council on Friday demanded tabling of the Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence bill in the winter session of Parliament.
The National Advisory Council, chaired by Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, met for the second time on Thursday after its recent revival and unanimously endorsed the idea of universal access to the public distribution system (PDS) in rural areas.
The National Advisory Council, chaired by Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, met for the second time on Thursday after its recent revival and unanimously endorsed the idea of universal access to the public distribution system in rural areas. It was agreed that a universalised PDS should be implemented initially in 150 districts, a member said.
The National Advisory Council's Communal Violence Bill has already run into rough weather after it faced protests from various sections of the society. The bill is dangerous in nature and the provisions of this bill give the impression that every act of communal violence is presumably committed by a member of the majority community, say those opposing the bill.
Consulting Conclave at Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi
Advani has said that the BJP's response led to Sonia's resignation.
Popular anguish over the slow pace of economic reforms has grown more intense in the last few weeks even as Congress President Sonia Gandhi takes charge as the head of the National Advisory Council and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's grip on the policy-making apparatus of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government appears to get weaker.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi was on Monday appointed the chairperson of the National Advisory Council, four years after she quit the post in the wake of the office of profit controversy.
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