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.
Government's cheap food distribution covers 68 per cent of the population.
US Commerce Secretary has appointed Purnima Voria to a new 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.
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.
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).
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.
This is her second intervention, seeking that work done under NREGA be treated as scheduled employment under the Minimum Wages Act.
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.
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.
Main difference has been on including people above the poverty line in the Food Security Bill.
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.
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.
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 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.
The demand for cash transfers was highest in Bihar at 54 per cent, followed by 34 per cent in Uttar Pradesh and 22 per cent in Jharkhand, where the access to PDS foodgrain was found limited.
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.
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.
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 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.
Food security, minority welfare and legislation to deal with communal violence ranked high in the 14-point focus area listed by the newly-constituted National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi at its first meeting in New Delhi on Thursday.
States may set it higher, not lower; planned link to cost of living.
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.
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.
The horrifying state of hunger in India adds urgency to the need to implement a new food security law, writes Praful Bidwai.
After one stop-work order on the Rs 54,000-crore Posco project, a four-member panel appointed by the Union ministry of environment and forests has dealt a body blow to yet another big-ticket investor in Orissa, the London-based Vedanta Resources Ltd.
Sheela Bhatt reveals how Sonia Gandhi has decided to take an active role in governance with the resurrection of the powerful National Advisory Council. A rediff exclusive!
Consulting Conclave at Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi
India might be heading towards a "serious livelihood crisis" as the situation seems to be worse this time for the working class amid the COVID crisis and local restrictions by states already add up to something close to a nationwide lockdown, according to noted economist Jean Dreze. In an interview to PTI, he also said the government's target to make India a $5 trillion economy by 2024-25 was never a "feasible target" and was just to pander to the "super-power ambitions" of the Indian elite. About the impact of the second wave of COVID on the Indian economy, the eminent economist said the situation today is not very different from what it was around this time last year as far as working people are concerned.
Prior to the Cabinet meeting, Gandhi had a meeting with senior Congress leaders at her residence amidst reports that she was averse to inclusion of NAC Chairmanship in the proposed law.
She charged that a high drama of sacrifice had been enacted, knowing that an Ordinance merely to protect her position would draw severe flak and not pass muster.
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.
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