India's Ruling Party President Sonia Gandhi Returns From Hospital.
Sonia Gandhi, the president of India's ruling Congress party who is widely seen as the country's most powerful politician, was back home from hospital on Tuesday after she took ill during a marathon parliament debate, officials said. . .
FOOD FOR ALL PROGRAMME
Television images showed the normally strong-looking leader trembling as she read out from a clutch of papers a short speech on the food security bill, one of the world's largest welfare programs and one that Gandhi has insisted on to ensure India's poor are not left behind in its emergence as an economic power.
"It's time to take the historic step," she said. "It is my fervent appeal that we shall pass this unanimously."
Critics say the program will strain government finances further at a time when the economy has slowed and the country's external imbalance has deteriorated, with the rupee currency languishing at record lows.
The food security bill was passed two hours after Gandhi and her son left parliament. It must now go to the upper house.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2013/08/27/world/asia/27reuters-india-gandhi.html?hp&_r=0