Employment generation and right to education (RTE) will be focus areas apart from other areas like food security, welfare of minorities for the recently constituted National Advisory Council (NAC). This has been decided in a meeting of NAC, chaired by NAC Chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

All members including M.S. Swaminathan, Ram Dayal Munda,  Narendra Jadhav, Pramod Tandon, Dr. Jean Dreze, Aruna Roy, Madhav Gadgil, N.C. Saxena,  Dr. Shiva Kumar, Deep Joshi,  Anu Agha, Farah Naqvi,  Harsh Mander and  Mirai Chatterjee, attended the meeting.

The members agreed that the work of the NAC would be to provide policy and legislative inputs to Government with special focus on social policy and the rights of disadvantaged groups. The NAC would also give attention to the broad priority areas outlined in the President’s speech to the Parliament on 4th June 2009.

 Food Security Bill, natural resource management including revitalization of agriculture, development of SC and ST, welfare of minorities, communal violence Bill, poverty elimination and employment generation, land rights and land reforms, disadvantaged children, health security and medical  insurance, social security and safety net for the disadvantaged groups,  urban poverty and development of North-East region will be prime focus areas of the council.