-The Telegraph
The National Advisory Council is expected to soon release a 35-page document detailing the subjects it took up with the UPA II government and the “success” it achieved with these. The document will also outline the council’s future agenda.
Sources in the council, headed by Sonia Gandhi, said the report was ready and merely needed to be ratified by all the members. The endorsement might come as early as tomorrow when the council meets, after which the document would be made public.
The sources said there was a “perception” that the council had been less “pro-active” in its second innings compared with the first. Between 2004 and 2009, the council had got the government to amend the laws on guaranteed rural employment and the right to information according to its recommendations.
In its current term, the council placed before the government its versions of the food security and communal violation bills and proposals relating to the laws dealing with land acquisition-rehabilitation and forest dwellers’ rights. But little has come out of them.
On the food bill, for instance, the Centre has opposed the council’s recommendation to universalise the public distribution system and enlarge the list of targeted beneficiaries to include marginalised groups such as the homeless and destitute senior citizens.
The RSS has slammed the communal violence bill as “overly minority-friendly” and “harsh” on Hindus because it allegedly projects the oppressor as a person from the majority community and the victim as someone belonging to a minority group by definition. While the council’s draft does not make such cast-iron distinctions, the RSS-VHP campaign has put the Congress on the back foot.
Tomorrow’s meeting will also discuss the council’s recommendations on the Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008.