Skip to main content

New Bill to strengthen definition of disabilities

Amendments to be incorporated in older draft
Rushing to fulfil the commitment of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the government on Friday tabled in the Rajya Sabha an older version of the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014 as the amendments approved by the Union Cabinet late on Thursday night could not be printed on time.

The 16-odd amendments, which were included after disability rights activists took up the matter with Ms. Gandhi and party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, are now likely to be placed in the House on Monday. They address many concerns of the activists.
Ms. Gandhi had announced at a function last month that the new Bill, in the making since 2011, would be passed in the winter session. The Bill expands the definition of disabilities to include 19 physical and mental disabilities, and provides for a 5 per cent reservation in government jobs and reservation in higher educational institutions.
The version tabled in the Rajya Sabha had been approved by the Union Cabinet on December 30, but disability rights activists opposed it, saying it was a diluted version. The activists, led by Javed Abidi, then launched a major campaign for bringing amendments in the draft of the proposed law and met senior Ministers in the government. But the Bill faces uncertainty as Parliament has not been able to transact any business on account of Telangana and other issues. There are procedural hurdles also.
The CPI(M) has demanded that the bill be first sent to a parliamenta
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NGT terminates chairmen of pollution control boards in 10 states (downtoearth,)

Cracking the whip on 10 State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) for ad-hoc appointments, the National Green Tribunal has ordered the termination of Chairpersons of these regulatory authorities. The concerned states are Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Rajasthan, Telangana, Haryana, Maharashtra and Manipur. The order was given last week by the principal bench of the NGT, chaired by Justice Swatanter Kumar. The recent order of June 8, 2017, comes as a follow-up to an NGT judgment given in August 2016. In that judgment, the NGT had issued directions on appointments of Chairmen and Member Secretaries of the SPCBs, emphasising on crucial roles they have in pollution control and abatement. It then specified required qualifications as well as tenure of the authorities. States were required to act on the orders within three months and frame Rules for appointment [See Box: Highlights of the NGT judgment of 2016 on criteria for SPCB chairperson appointment]. Having
Post a Comment
Click Here To Read more »

High dose of Vitamin C and B3 can kill colon cancer cells: study (downtoearth)

In a first, a team of researchers has found that high doses of Vitamin C and niacin or Vitamin B3 can kill cancer stem cells. A study published in Cell Biology International showed the opposing effects of low and high dose of vitamin C and vitamin B3 on colon cancer stem cells. Led by Bipasha Bose and Sudheer Shenoy, the team found that while low doses (5-25 micromolar) of Vitamin C and B3 proliferate colon cancer stem cells, high doses (100 to 1,000 micromolar) killed cancer stem cells. Such high doses of vitamins can only be achieved through intravenous injections in colon cancer patients. The third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, colon cancer can be prevented by an intake of dietary fibre and lifestyle changes. While the next step of the researchers is to delineate the mechanisms involved in such opposing effects, they also hope to establish a therapeutic dose of Vitamin C and B3 for colon cancer stem cell therapy. “If the therapeutic dose gets validated under in vivo
1 comment
Click Here To Read more »

SC asks Centre to strike a balance on Rohingya issue (.hindu)

Supreme Court orally indicates that the government should not deport Rohingya “now” as the Centre prevails over it to not record any such views in its formal order, citing “international ramifications”. The Supreme Court on Friday came close to ordering the government not to deport the Rohingya. It finally settled on merely observing that a balance should be struck between humanitarian concern for the community and the country's national security and economic interests. The court was hearing a bunch of petitions, one filed by persons within the Rohingya community, against a proposed move to deport over 40,000 Rohingya refugees. A three-judge Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, began by orally indicating that the government should not deport Rohingya “now”, but the government prevailed on the court to not pass any formal order, citing “international ramifications”. With this, the status quo continues even though the court gave the community liberty to approach i
1 comment
Click Here To Read more »