After the recent yum update, named failed to load. I tried searching Google without much help. The permissions were all correct and yet named failed to load. And then I found the simple solution.

I manually modified /etc/init.d/named script. I changed the line daemon /usr/sbin/$named; to daemon /usr/sbin/$named -u named;.

This ensured that the nameserver was actually running as user named. I am not sure why it stopped working all of sudden after the update or how it was working before I made this change. I am sure the chroot was handled somehow. In any case this works and is guaranteed to continue to work down the road.