Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
$message = 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 73
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
$stackFrame = (int) 1
$trace = [
	(int) 0 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ServerRequest.php',
		'line' => (int) 2421,
		'function' => 'deprecationWarning',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead.'
		]
	],
	(int) 1 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
		'line' => (int) 73,
		'function' => 'offsetGet',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'catslug'
		]
	],
	(int) 2 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Controller/Controller.php',
		'line' => (int) 610,
		'function' => 'printArticle',
		'class' => 'App\Controller\ArtileDetailController',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 3 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 120,
		'function' => 'invokeAction',
		'class' => 'Cake\Controller\Controller',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 4 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 94,
		'function' => '_invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 5 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/BaseApplication.php',
		'line' => (int) 235,
		'function' => 'dispatch',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 6 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\BaseApplication',
		'object' => object(App\Application) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 7 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 162,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 8 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 9 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 88,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 10 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 11 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 96,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 12 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 13 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 51,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 14 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Server.php',
		'line' => (int) 98,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\MiddlewareQueue) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 15 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/webroot/index.php',
		'line' => (int) 39,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Server',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Server) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	]
]
$frame = [
	'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
	'line' => (int) 73,
	'function' => 'offsetGet',
	'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
	'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {
		trustProxy => false
		[protected] params => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] data => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] query => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] cookies => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _environment => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] url => 'latest-news-updates/food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638/print'
		[protected] base => ''
		[protected] webroot => '/'
		[protected] here => '/latest-news-updates/food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638/print'
		[protected] trustedProxies => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] _input => null
		[protected] _detectors => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _detectorCache => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] stream => object(Zend\Diactoros\PhpInputStream) {}
		[protected] uri => object(Zend\Diactoros\Uri) {}
		[protected] session => object(Cake\Http\Session) {}
		[protected] attributes => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] emulatedAttributes => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] uploadedFiles => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] protocol => null
		[protected] requestTarget => null
		[private] deprecatedProperties => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	},
	'type' => '->',
	'args' => [
		(int) 0 => 'catslug'
	]
]
deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 73
Cake\Controller\Controller::invokeAction() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 610
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Code Context


        trigger_error($message, E_USER_DEPRECATED);

    }
$message = 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 74
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php.'
$stackFrame = (int) 1
$trace = [
	(int) 0 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ServerRequest.php',
		'line' => (int) 2421,
		'function' => 'deprecationWarning',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead.'
		]
	],
	(int) 1 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
		'line' => (int) 74,
		'function' => 'offsetGet',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => 'artileslug'
		]
	],
	(int) 2 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Controller/Controller.php',
		'line' => (int) 610,
		'function' => 'printArticle',
		'class' => 'App\Controller\ArtileDetailController',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 3 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 120,
		'function' => 'invokeAction',
		'class' => 'Cake\Controller\Controller',
		'object' => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	],
	(int) 4 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php',
		'line' => (int) 94,
		'function' => '_invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(App\Controller\ArtileDetailController) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 5 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/BaseApplication.php',
		'line' => (int) 235,
		'function' => 'dispatch',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 6 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\BaseApplication',
		'object' => object(App\Application) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 7 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 162,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 8 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 9 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 88,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 10 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 11 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php',
		'line' => (int) 96,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 12 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 65,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware',
		'object' => object(Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 13 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Runner.php',
		'line' => (int) 51,
		'function' => '__invoke',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 14 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Http/Server.php',
		'line' => (int) 98,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Runner',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Runner) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => [
			(int) 0 => object(Cake\Http\MiddlewareQueue) {},
			(int) 1 => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {},
			(int) 2 => object(Cake\Http\Response) {}
		]
	],
	(int) 15 => [
		'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/webroot/index.php',
		'line' => (int) 39,
		'function' => 'run',
		'class' => 'Cake\Http\Server',
		'object' => object(Cake\Http\Server) {},
		'type' => '->',
		'args' => []
	]
]
$frame = [
	'file' => '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php',
	'line' => (int) 74,
	'function' => 'offsetGet',
	'class' => 'Cake\Http\ServerRequest',
	'object' => object(Cake\Http\ServerRequest) {
		trustProxy => false
		[protected] params => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] data => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] query => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] cookies => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _environment => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] url => 'latest-news-updates/food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638/print'
		[protected] base => ''
		[protected] webroot => '/'
		[protected] here => '/latest-news-updates/food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638/print'
		[protected] trustedProxies => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] _input => null
		[protected] _detectors => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] _detectorCache => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] stream => object(Zend\Diactoros\PhpInputStream) {}
		[protected] uri => object(Zend\Diactoros\Uri) {}
		[protected] session => object(Cake\Http\Session) {}
		[protected] attributes => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] emulatedAttributes => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
		[protected] uploadedFiles => [[maximum depth reached]]
		[protected] protocol => null
		[protected] requestTarget => null
		[private] deprecatedProperties => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	},
	'type' => '->',
	'args' => [
		(int) 0 => 'artileslug'
	]
]
deprecationWarning - CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311
Cake\Http\ServerRequest::offsetGet() - CORE/src/Http/ServerRequest.php, line 2421
App\Controller\ArtileDetailController::printArticle() - APP/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line 74
Cake\Controller\Controller::invokeAction() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 610
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 120
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51
Cake\Http\Server::run() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 98

Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Code Context
            if (Configure::read('debug')) {

                trigger_error($message, E_USER_WARNING);

            } else {
$response = object(Cake\Http\Response) {

	'status' => (int) 200,
	'contentType' => 'text/html',
	'headers' => [
		'Content-Type' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	],
	'file' => null,
	'fileRange' => [],
	'cookies' => object(Cake\Http\Cookie\CookieCollection) {},
	'cacheDirectives' => [],
	'body' => '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://im4change.in/<pre class="cake-error"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-trace').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none');"><b>Notice</b> (8)</a>: Undefined variable: urlPrefix [<b>APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp</b>, line <b>8</b>]<div id="cakeErr680e73c04fa45-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr680e73c04fa45-code" class="cake-code-dump" style="display: none;"><code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"></span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">head</span><span style="color: #007700">&gt;
</span></span></code>
<span class="code-highlight"><code><span style="color: #000000">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;link&nbsp;rel="canonical"&nbsp;href="<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">Configure</span><span style="color: #007700">::</span><span style="color: #0000BB">read</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'SITE_URL'</span><span style="color: #007700">);&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$urlPrefix</span><span style="color: #007700">;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">category</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">slug</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>/<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr680e73c04fa45-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$viewFile = &#039;/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp&#039;
$dataForView = [
	&#039;article_current&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 1561,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar&#039;,
		&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The three-page note&amp;mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&amp;mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &amp;ldquo;most vulnerable sections&amp;rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot;&gt;National Food Security Act&lt;/a&gt; must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&amp;rdquo; said the note. &amp;ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &amp;ldquo;special observer&amp;rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&amp;rdquo; said the note, adding that &amp;ldquo;vulnerable groups&amp;rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &amp;ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;This is a difficult task, to redraw India&amp;rsquo;s official poverty line&amp;mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&amp;mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &amp;ldquo;fair-price&amp;rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &amp;ldquo;to the extent possible&amp;rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&amp;rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The note makes a special note of &amp;ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&amp;rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&amp;rdquo; the note says. &amp;ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
		&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;Live Mint, 7 April, 2010, http://www.livemint.com/2010/04/07002953/Food-Bill--How-3-pages-change.html&#039;,
		&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
		&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
		&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638&#039;,
		&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
		&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 1638,
		&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;
	
	},
	&#039;articleid&#039; =&gt; (int) 1561,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;Food Security,Right to Food&#039;,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;
The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The three-page note&amp;mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&amp;mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &amp;ldquo;most vulnerable sections&amp;rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot; title=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot;&gt;National Food Security Act&lt;/a&gt; must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&amp;rdquo; said the note. &amp;ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &amp;ldquo;special observer&amp;rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&amp;rdquo; said the note, adding that &amp;ldquo;vulnerable groups&amp;rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &amp;ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;This is a difficult task, to redraw India&amp;rsquo;s official poverty line&amp;mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&amp;mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &amp;ldquo;fair-price&amp;rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &amp;ldquo;to the extent possible&amp;rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&amp;rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The note makes a special note of &amp;ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&amp;rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&amp;rdquo; the note says. &amp;ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;English&#039;,
	&#039;SITE_URL&#039; =&gt; &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;,
	&#039;site_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;im4change&#039;,
	&#039;adminprix&#039; =&gt; &#039;admin&#039;
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 1561,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar&#039;,
	&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The three-page note&amp;mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&amp;mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &amp;ldquo;most vulnerable sections&amp;rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot;&gt;National Food Security Act&lt;/a&gt; must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&amp;rdquo; said the note. &amp;ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &amp;ldquo;special observer&amp;rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&amp;rdquo; said the note, adding that &amp;ldquo;vulnerable groups&amp;rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &amp;ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;This is a difficult task, to redraw India&amp;rsquo;s official poverty line&amp;mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&amp;mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &amp;ldquo;fair-price&amp;rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &amp;ldquo;to the extent possible&amp;rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&amp;rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The note makes a special note of &amp;ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&amp;rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&amp;rdquo; the note says. &amp;ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;Live Mint, 7 April, 2010, http://www.livemint.com/2010/04/07002953/Food-Bill--How-3-pages-change.html&#039;,
	&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
	&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
	&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638&#039;,
	&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
	&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 1638,
	&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
		(int) 0 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 1 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {}
	],
	&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
		&#039;*&#039; =&gt; true,
		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; false
	],
	&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;

}
$articleid = (int) 1561
$metaTitle = &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar&#039;
$metaKeywords = &#039;Food Security,Right to Food&#039;
$metaDesc = &#039;
The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The three-page note&amp;mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&amp;mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &amp;ldquo;most vulnerable sections&amp;rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot; title=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot;&gt;National Food Security Act&lt;/a&gt; must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&amp;rdquo; said the note. &amp;ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &amp;ldquo;special observer&amp;rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&amp;rdquo; said the note, adding that &amp;ldquo;vulnerable groups&amp;rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &amp;ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;This is a difficult task, to redraw India&amp;rsquo;s official poverty line&amp;mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&amp;mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &amp;ldquo;fair-price&amp;rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &amp;ldquo;to the extent possible&amp;rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&amp;rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The note makes a special note of &amp;ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&amp;rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&amp;rdquo; the note says. &amp;ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
$lang = &#039;English&#039;
$SITE_URL = &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;
$site_title = &#039;im4change&#039;
$adminprix = &#039;admin&#039;</pre><pre class="stack-trace">include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51</pre></div></pre>latest-news-updates/food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638.html"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <link href="https://im4change.in/css/control.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
          media="all"/>
    <title>LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="
The government&rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting..."/>
    <script src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-migrate.min.js"></script>
    <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

        $(document).ready(function () {
            var img = $("img")[0]; // Get my img elem
            var pic_real_width, pic_real_height;
            $("<img/>") // Make in memory copy of image to avoid css issues
                .attr("src", $(img).attr("src"))
                .load(function () {
                    pic_real_width = this.width;   // Note: $(this).width() will not
                    pic_real_height = this.height; // work for in memory images.
                });
        });
    </script>
    <style type="text/css">
        @media screen {
            div.divFooter {
                display: block;
            }
        }

        @media print {
            .printbutton {
                display: none !important;
            }
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="98%" align="center">
    <tr>
        <td class="top_bg">
            <div class="divFooter">
                <img src="https://im4change.in/images/logo1.jpg" height="59" border="0"
                     alt="Resource centre on India's rural distress" style="padding-top:14px;"/>
            </div>

        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td id="topspace">&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr id="topspace">
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-bottom:1px solid #000; padding-top:10px;" class="printbutton">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td width="100%">
            <h1 class="news_headlines" style="font-style:normal">
                <strong>Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar</strong></h1>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td width="100%" style="font-family:Arial, 'Segoe Script', 'Segoe UI', sans-serif, serif"><font size="3">
                <p align="justify"><font >The government&rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The three-page note&mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&rsquo;s meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &ldquo;most vulnerable sections&rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The <a href="http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59" title="http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59">National Food Security Act</a> must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&rdquo; said the note. &ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&rdquo;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &ldquo;special observer&rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&rsquo;s meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&rdquo; said the note, adding that &ldquo;vulnerable groups&rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&rdquo;.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >This is a difficult task, to redraw India&rsquo;s official poverty line&mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &ldquo;fair-price&rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &ldquo;to the extent possible&rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The note makes a special note of &ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&rdquo; the note says. &ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&rdquo;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font ></font></p>               </font>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-top:1px solid #000; border-bottom:1px solid #000;padding-top:10px;">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table></body>
</html>'

}
$maxBufferLength = (int) 8192
$file = '/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php'
$line = (int) 853
$message = 'Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853'
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emit() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48
Cake\Http\Server::emit() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 141
[main] - ROOT/webroot/index.php, line 39

Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Code Context
            $response->getStatusCode(),

            ($reasonPhrase ? ' ' . $reasonPhrase : '')

        ));
$response = object(Cake\Http\Response) {

	'status' => (int) 200,
	'contentType' => 'text/html',
	'headers' => [
		'Content-Type' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	],
	'file' => null,
	'fileRange' => [],
	'cookies' => object(Cake\Http\Cookie\CookieCollection) {},
	'cacheDirectives' => [],
	'body' => '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://im4change.in/<pre class="cake-error"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-trace').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none');"><b>Notice</b> (8)</a>: Undefined variable: urlPrefix [<b>APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp</b>, line <b>8</b>]<div id="cakeErr680e73c04fa45-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr680e73c04fa45-code" class="cake-code-dump" style="display: none;"><code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"></span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">head</span><span style="color: #007700">&gt;
</span></span></code>
<span class="code-highlight"><code><span style="color: #000000">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;link&nbsp;rel="canonical"&nbsp;href="<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">Configure</span><span style="color: #007700">::</span><span style="color: #0000BB">read</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'SITE_URL'</span><span style="color: #007700">);&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$urlPrefix</span><span style="color: #007700">;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">category</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">slug</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>/<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr680e73c04fa45-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$viewFile = &#039;/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp&#039;
$dataForView = [
	&#039;article_current&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 1561,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar&#039;,
		&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The three-page note&amp;mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&amp;mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &amp;ldquo;most vulnerable sections&amp;rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot;&gt;National Food Security Act&lt;/a&gt; must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&amp;rdquo; said the note. &amp;ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &amp;ldquo;special observer&amp;rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&amp;rdquo; said the note, adding that &amp;ldquo;vulnerable groups&amp;rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &amp;ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;This is a difficult task, to redraw India&amp;rsquo;s official poverty line&amp;mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&amp;mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &amp;ldquo;fair-price&amp;rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &amp;ldquo;to the extent possible&amp;rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&amp;rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The note makes a special note of &amp;ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&amp;rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&amp;rdquo; the note says. &amp;ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
		&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;Live Mint, 7 April, 2010, http://www.livemint.com/2010/04/07002953/Food-Bill--How-3-pages-change.html&#039;,
		&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
		&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
		&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638&#039;,
		&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
		&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 1638,
		&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;
	
	},
	&#039;articleid&#039; =&gt; (int) 1561,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;Food Security,Right to Food&#039;,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;
The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The three-page note&amp;mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&amp;mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &amp;ldquo;most vulnerable sections&amp;rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot; title=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot;&gt;National Food Security Act&lt;/a&gt; must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&amp;rdquo; said the note. &amp;ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &amp;ldquo;special observer&amp;rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&amp;rdquo; said the note, adding that &amp;ldquo;vulnerable groups&amp;rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &amp;ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;This is a difficult task, to redraw India&amp;rsquo;s official poverty line&amp;mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&amp;mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &amp;ldquo;fair-price&amp;rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &amp;ldquo;to the extent possible&amp;rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&amp;rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The note makes a special note of &amp;ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&amp;rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&amp;rdquo; the note says. &amp;ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;English&#039;,
	&#039;SITE_URL&#039; =&gt; &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;,
	&#039;site_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;im4change&#039;,
	&#039;adminprix&#039; =&gt; &#039;admin&#039;
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 1561,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar&#039;,
	&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The three-page note&amp;mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&amp;mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &amp;ldquo;most vulnerable sections&amp;rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot;&gt;National Food Security Act&lt;/a&gt; must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&amp;rdquo; said the note. &amp;ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &amp;ldquo;special observer&amp;rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&amp;rdquo; said the note, adding that &amp;ldquo;vulnerable groups&amp;rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &amp;ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;This is a difficult task, to redraw India&amp;rsquo;s official poverty line&amp;mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&amp;mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &amp;ldquo;fair-price&amp;rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &amp;ldquo;to the extent possible&amp;rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&amp;rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The note makes a special note of &amp;ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&amp;rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&amp;rdquo; the note says. &amp;ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;Live Mint, 7 April, 2010, http://www.livemint.com/2010/04/07002953/Food-Bill--How-3-pages-change.html&#039;,
	&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
	&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
	&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638&#039;,
	&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
	&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 1638,
	&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
		(int) 0 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 1 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {}
	],
	&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
		&#039;*&#039; =&gt; true,
		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; false
	],
	&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;

}
$articleid = (int) 1561
$metaTitle = &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar&#039;
$metaKeywords = &#039;Food Security,Right to Food&#039;
$metaDesc = &#039;
The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The three-page note&amp;mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&amp;mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &amp;ldquo;most vulnerable sections&amp;rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot; title=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot;&gt;National Food Security Act&lt;/a&gt; must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&amp;rdquo; said the note. &amp;ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &amp;ldquo;special observer&amp;rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&amp;rdquo; said the note, adding that &amp;ldquo;vulnerable groups&amp;rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &amp;ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;This is a difficult task, to redraw India&amp;rsquo;s official poverty line&amp;mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&amp;mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &amp;ldquo;fair-price&amp;rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &amp;ldquo;to the extent possible&amp;rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&amp;rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The note makes a special note of &amp;ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&amp;rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&amp;rdquo; the note says. &amp;ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
$lang = &#039;English&#039;
$SITE_URL = &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;
$site_title = &#039;im4change&#039;
$adminprix = &#039;admin&#039;</pre><pre class="stack-trace">include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51</pre></div></pre>latest-news-updates/food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638.html"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <link href="https://im4change.in/css/control.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
          media="all"/>
    <title>LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="
The government&rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting..."/>
    <script src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-migrate.min.js"></script>
    <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

        $(document).ready(function () {
            var img = $("img")[0]; // Get my img elem
            var pic_real_width, pic_real_height;
            $("<img/>") // Make in memory copy of image to avoid css issues
                .attr("src", $(img).attr("src"))
                .load(function () {
                    pic_real_width = this.width;   // Note: $(this).width() will not
                    pic_real_height = this.height; // work for in memory images.
                });
        });
    </script>
    <style type="text/css">
        @media screen {
            div.divFooter {
                display: block;
            }
        }

        @media print {
            .printbutton {
                display: none !important;
            }
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="98%" align="center">
    <tr>
        <td class="top_bg">
            <div class="divFooter">
                <img src="https://im4change.in/images/logo1.jpg" height="59" border="0"
                     alt="Resource centre on India's rural distress" style="padding-top:14px;"/>
            </div>

        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td id="topspace">&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr id="topspace">
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-bottom:1px solid #000; padding-top:10px;" class="printbutton">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td width="100%">
            <h1 class="news_headlines" style="font-style:normal">
                <strong>Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar</strong></h1>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td width="100%" style="font-family:Arial, 'Segoe Script', 'Segoe UI', sans-serif, serif"><font size="3">
                <p align="justify"><font >The government&rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The three-page note&mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&rsquo;s meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &ldquo;most vulnerable sections&rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The <a href="http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59" title="http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59">National Food Security Act</a> must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&rdquo; said the note. &ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&rdquo;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &ldquo;special observer&rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&rsquo;s meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&rdquo; said the note, adding that &ldquo;vulnerable groups&rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&rdquo;.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >This is a difficult task, to redraw India&rsquo;s official poverty line&mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &ldquo;fair-price&rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &ldquo;to the extent possible&rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The note makes a special note of &ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&rdquo; the note says. &ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&rdquo;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font ></font></p>               </font>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-top:1px solid #000; border-bottom:1px solid #000;padding-top:10px;">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table></body>
</html>'

}
$reasonPhrase = 'OK'
header - [internal], line ??
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emitStatusLine() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emit() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 54
Cake\Http\Server::emit() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 141
[main] - ROOT/webroot/index.php, line 39

Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
Code Context
                    $value

                ), $first);

                $first = false;
$response = object(Cake\Http\Response) {

	'status' => (int) 200,
	'contentType' => 'text/html',
	'headers' => [
		'Content-Type' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		]
	],
	'file' => null,
	'fileRange' => [],
	'cookies' => object(Cake\Http\Cookie\CookieCollection) {},
	'cacheDirectives' => [],
	'body' => '<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
        "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
    <link rel="canonical" href="https://im4change.in/<pre class="cake-error"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-trace').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none');"><b>Notice</b> (8)</a>: Undefined variable: urlPrefix [<b>APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp</b>, line <b>8</b>]<div id="cakeErr680e73c04fa45-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr680e73c04fa45-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr680e73c04fa45-code" class="cake-code-dump" style="display: none;"><code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB"></span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">head</span><span style="color: #007700">&gt;
</span></span></code>
<span class="code-highlight"><code><span style="color: #000000">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&lt;link&nbsp;rel="canonical"&nbsp;href="<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">Configure</span><span style="color: #007700">::</span><span style="color: #0000BB">read</span><span style="color: #007700">(</span><span style="color: #DD0000">'SITE_URL'</span><span style="color: #007700">);&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$urlPrefix</span><span style="color: #007700">;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">category</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">slug</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>/<span style="color: #0000BB">&lt;?php&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">echo&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr680e73c04fa45-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$viewFile = &#039;/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp&#039;
$dataForView = [
	&#039;article_current&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 1561,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar&#039;,
		&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The three-page note&amp;mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&amp;mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &amp;ldquo;most vulnerable sections&amp;rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot;&gt;National Food Security Act&lt;/a&gt; must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&amp;rdquo; said the note. &amp;ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &amp;ldquo;special observer&amp;rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&amp;rdquo; said the note, adding that &amp;ldquo;vulnerable groups&amp;rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &amp;ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;This is a difficult task, to redraw India&amp;rsquo;s official poverty line&amp;mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&amp;mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &amp;ldquo;fair-price&amp;rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &amp;ldquo;to the extent possible&amp;rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&amp;rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The note makes a special note of &amp;ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&amp;rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&amp;rdquo; the note says. &amp;ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
		&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;Live Mint, 7 April, 2010, http://www.livemint.com/2010/04/07002953/Food-Bill--How-3-pages-change.html&#039;,
		&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
		&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
		&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
		&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638&#039;,
		&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
		&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
		&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 1638,
		&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
		&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
		&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [[maximum depth reached]],
		&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;
	
	},
	&#039;articleid&#039; =&gt; (int) 1561,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;Food Security,Right to Food&#039;,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;
The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The three-page note&amp;mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&amp;mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &amp;ldquo;most vulnerable sections&amp;rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot; title=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot;&gt;National Food Security Act&lt;/a&gt; must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&amp;rdquo; said the note. &amp;ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &amp;ldquo;special observer&amp;rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&amp;rdquo; said the note, adding that &amp;ldquo;vulnerable groups&amp;rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &amp;ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;This is a difficult task, to redraw India&amp;rsquo;s official poverty line&amp;mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&amp;mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &amp;ldquo;fair-price&amp;rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &amp;ldquo;to the extent possible&amp;rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&amp;rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The note makes a special note of &amp;ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&amp;rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&amp;rdquo; the note says. &amp;ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;English&#039;,
	&#039;SITE_URL&#039; =&gt; &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;,
	&#039;site_title&#039; =&gt; &#039;im4change&#039;,
	&#039;adminprix&#039; =&gt; &#039;admin&#039;
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	&#039;id&#039; =&gt; (int) 1561,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar&#039;,
	&#039;subheading&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;description&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The three-page note&amp;mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&amp;mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &amp;ldquo;most vulnerable sections&amp;rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot;&gt;National Food Security Act&lt;/a&gt; must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&amp;rdquo; said the note. &amp;ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &amp;ldquo;special observer&amp;rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&amp;rdquo; said the note, adding that &amp;ldquo;vulnerable groups&amp;rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &amp;ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;This is a difficult task, to redraw India&amp;rsquo;s official poverty line&amp;mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&amp;mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &amp;ldquo;fair-price&amp;rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &amp;ldquo;to the extent possible&amp;rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&amp;rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The note makes a special note of &amp;ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&amp;rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&amp;ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&amp;rdquo; the note says. &amp;ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&#039;,
	&#039;credit_writer&#039; =&gt; &#039;Live Mint, 7 April, 2010, http://www.livemint.com/2010/04/07002953/Food-Bill--How-3-pages-change.html&#039;,
	&#039;article_img&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;article_img_thumb&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;status&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;show_on_home&#039; =&gt; (int) 1,
	&#039;lang&#039; =&gt; &#039;EN&#039;,
	&#039;category_id&#039; =&gt; (int) 16,
	&#039;tag_keyword&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;seo_url&#039; =&gt; &#039;food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638&#039;,
	&#039;meta_title&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_keywords&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;meta_description&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;noindex&#039; =&gt; (int) 0,
	&#039;publish_date&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	&#039;most_visit_section_id&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;article_big_img&#039; =&gt; null,
	&#039;liveid&#039; =&gt; (int) 1638,
	&#039;created&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;modified&#039; =&gt; object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	&#039;edate&#039; =&gt; &#039;&#039;,
	&#039;tags&#039; =&gt; [
		(int) 0 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 1 =&gt; object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {}
	],
	&#039;category&#039; =&gt; object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	&#039;[new]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[accessible]&#039; =&gt; [
		&#039;*&#039; =&gt; true,
		&#039;id&#039; =&gt; false
	],
	&#039;[dirty]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[original]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[virtual]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[hasErrors]&#039; =&gt; false,
	&#039;[errors]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[invalid]&#039; =&gt; [],
	&#039;[repository]&#039; =&gt; &#039;Articles&#039;

}
$articleid = (int) 1561
$metaTitle = &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar&#039;
$metaKeywords = &#039;Food Security,Right to Food&#039;
$metaDesc = &#039;
The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The government&amp;rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &amp;ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&amp;rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The three-page note&amp;mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&amp;mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &amp;ldquo;most vulnerable sections&amp;rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The &lt;a href=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot; title=&quot;http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59&quot;&gt;National Food Security Act&lt;/a&gt; must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&amp;rdquo; said the note. &amp;ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &amp;ldquo;special observer&amp;rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&amp;rsquo;s meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&amp;rdquo; said the note, adding that &amp;ldquo;vulnerable groups&amp;rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &amp;ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&amp;rdquo;.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;This is a difficult task, to redraw India&amp;rsquo;s official poverty line&amp;mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&amp;mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &amp;ldquo;fair-price&amp;rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &amp;ldquo;to the extent possible&amp;rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&amp;rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The note makes a special note of &amp;ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&amp;rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&amp;ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&amp;rdquo; the note says. &amp;ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&amp;rdquo;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#039;
$lang = &#039;English&#039;
$SITE_URL = &#039;https://im4change.in/&#039;
$site_title = &#039;im4change&#039;
$adminprix = &#039;admin&#039;</pre><pre class="stack-trace">include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51</pre></div></pre>latest-news-updates/food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638.html"/>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
    <link href="https://im4change.in/css/control.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
          media="all"/>
    <title>LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="
The government&rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting..."/>
    <script src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-1.10.2.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://im4change.in/js/jquery-migrate.min.js"></script>
    <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

        $(document).ready(function () {
            var img = $("img")[0]; // Get my img elem
            var pic_real_width, pic_real_height;
            $("<img/>") // Make in memory copy of image to avoid css issues
                .attr("src", $(img).attr("src"))
                .load(function () {
                    pic_real_width = this.width;   // Note: $(this).width() will not
                    pic_real_height = this.height; // work for in memory images.
                });
        });
    </script>
    <style type="text/css">
        @media screen {
            div.divFooter {
                display: block;
            }
        }

        @media print {
            .printbutton {
                display: none !important;
            }
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" border="0" width="98%" align="center">
    <tr>
        <td class="top_bg">
            <div class="divFooter">
                <img src="https://im4change.in/images/logo1.jpg" height="59" border="0"
                     alt="Resource centre on India's rural distress" style="padding-top:14px;"/>
            </div>

        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td id="topspace">&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr id="topspace">
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-bottom:1px solid #000; padding-top:10px;" class="printbutton">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td width="100%">
            <h1 class="news_headlines" style="font-style:normal">
                <strong>Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar</strong></h1>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td width="100%" style="font-family:Arial, 'Segoe Script', 'Segoe UI', sans-serif, serif"><font size="3">
                <p align="justify"><font >The government&rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The three-page note&mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&rsquo;s meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &ldquo;most vulnerable sections&rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The <a href="http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59" title="http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59">National Food Security Act</a> must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&rdquo; said the note. &ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&rdquo;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &ldquo;special observer&rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&rsquo;s meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&rdquo; said the note, adding that &ldquo;vulnerable groups&rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&rdquo;.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >This is a difficult task, to redraw India&rsquo;s official poverty line&mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &ldquo;fair-price&rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &ldquo;to the extent possible&rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The note makes a special note of &ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&rdquo; the note says. &ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&rdquo;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font ></font></p>               </font>
        </td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>&nbsp;</td>
    </tr>

    <tr>
        <td height="50" style="border-top:1px solid #000; border-bottom:1px solid #000;padding-top:10px;">
            <form><input type="button" value=" Print this page "
                         onclick="window.print();return false;"/></form>
        </td>
    </tr>
</table></body>
</html>'

}
$cookies = []
$values = [
	(int) 0 => 'text/html; charset=UTF-8'
]
$name = 'Content-Type'
$first = true
$value = 'text/html; charset=UTF-8'
header - [internal], line ??
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emitHeaders() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181
Cake\Http\ResponseEmitter::emit() - CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 55
Cake\Http\Server::emit() - CORE/src/Http/Server.php, line 141
[main] - ROOT/webroot/index.php, line 39

<head>

    <link rel="canonical" href="<?php echo Configure::read('SITE_URL'); ?><?php echo $urlPrefix;?><?php echo $article_current->category->slug; ?>/<?php echo $article_current->seo_url; ?>.html"/>

    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>

$viewFile = '/home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp'
$dataForView = [
	'article_current' => object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

		'id' => (int) 1561,
		'title' => 'Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar',
		'subheading' => '',
		'description' => '<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The government&rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The three-page note&mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&rsquo;s meeting.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &ldquo;most vulnerable sections&rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">&ldquo;The <a href="http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59">National Food Security Act</a> must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&rdquo; said the note. &ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&rdquo;</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &ldquo;special observer&rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&rsquo;s meeting.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">&ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&rdquo; said the note, adding that &ldquo;vulnerable groups&rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&rdquo;.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">This is a difficult task, to redraw India&rsquo;s official poverty line&mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &ldquo;fair-price&rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &ldquo;to the extent possible&rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The note makes a special note of &ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">&ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&rdquo; the note says. &ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&rdquo;</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3"></font>
</p>
',
		'credit_writer' => 'Live Mint, 7 April, 2010, http://www.livemint.com/2010/04/07002953/Food-Bill--How-3-pages-change.html',
		'article_img' => '',
		'article_img_thumb' => '',
		'status' => (int) 1,
		'show_on_home' => (int) 1,
		'lang' => 'EN',
		'category_id' => (int) 16,
		'tag_keyword' => '',
		'seo_url' => 'food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638',
		'meta_title' => null,
		'meta_keywords' => null,
		'meta_description' => null,
		'noindex' => (int) 0,
		'publish_date' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
		'most_visit_section_id' => null,
		'article_big_img' => null,
		'liveid' => (int) 1638,
		'created' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'modified' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'edate' => '',
		'tags' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		'category' => object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
		'[new]' => false,
		'[accessible]' => [
			[maximum depth reached]
		],
		'[dirty]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[original]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[virtual]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[hasErrors]' => false,
		'[errors]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[invalid]' => [[maximum depth reached]],
		'[repository]' => 'Articles'
	
	},
	'articleid' => (int) 1561,
	'metaTitle' => 'LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar',
	'metaKeywords' => 'Food Security,Right to Food',
	'metaDesc' => '
The government&rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting...',
	'disp' => '<p align="justify"><font >The government&rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The three-page note&mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&rsquo;s meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &ldquo;most vulnerable sections&rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The <a href="http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59" title="http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59">National Food Security Act</a> must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&rdquo; said the note. &ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&rdquo;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &ldquo;special observer&rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&rsquo;s meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&rdquo; said the note, adding that &ldquo;vulnerable groups&rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&rdquo;.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >This is a difficult task, to redraw India&rsquo;s official poverty line&mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &ldquo;fair-price&rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &ldquo;to the extent possible&rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The note makes a special note of &ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&rdquo; the note says. &ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&rdquo;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font ></font></p>',
	'lang' => 'English',
	'SITE_URL' => 'https://im4change.in/',
	'site_title' => 'im4change',
	'adminprix' => 'admin'
]
$article_current = object(App\Model\Entity\Article) {

	'id' => (int) 1561,
	'title' => 'Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar',
	'subheading' => '',
	'description' => '<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The government&rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The three-page note&mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&rsquo;s meeting.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &ldquo;most vulnerable sections&rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">&ldquo;The <a href="http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59">National Food Security Act</a> must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&rdquo; said the note. &ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&rdquo;</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &ldquo;special observer&rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&rsquo;s meeting.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">&ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&rdquo; said the note, adding that &ldquo;vulnerable groups&rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&rdquo;.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">This is a difficult task, to redraw India&rsquo;s official poverty line&mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &ldquo;fair-price&rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &ldquo;to the extent possible&rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The note makes a special note of &ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">&ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&rdquo; the note says. &ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&rdquo;</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3"></font>
</p>
',
	'credit_writer' => 'Live Mint, 7 April, 2010, http://www.livemint.com/2010/04/07002953/Food-Bill--How-3-pages-change.html',
	'article_img' => '',
	'article_img_thumb' => '',
	'status' => (int) 1,
	'show_on_home' => (int) 1,
	'lang' => 'EN',
	'category_id' => (int) 16,
	'tag_keyword' => '',
	'seo_url' => 'food-bill-how-3-pages-changed-govt-approach-by-samar-halarnkar-1638',
	'meta_title' => null,
	'meta_keywords' => null,
	'meta_description' => null,
	'noindex' => (int) 0,
	'publish_date' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenDate) {},
	'most_visit_section_id' => null,
	'article_big_img' => null,
	'liveid' => (int) 1638,
	'created' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	'modified' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	'edate' => '',
	'tags' => [
		(int) 0 => object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 1 => object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {}
	],
	'category' => object(App\Model\Entity\Category) {},
	'[new]' => false,
	'[accessible]' => [
		'*' => true,
		'id' => false
	],
	'[dirty]' => [],
	'[original]' => [],
	'[virtual]' => [],
	'[hasErrors]' => false,
	'[errors]' => [],
	'[invalid]' => [],
	'[repository]' => 'Articles'

}
$articleid = (int) 1561
$metaTitle = 'LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar'
$metaKeywords = 'Food Security,Right to Food'
$metaDesc = '
The government&rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting...'
$disp = '<p align="justify"><font >The government&rsquo;s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and &ldquo;not in the spirit of the election promises&rdquo; in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The three-page note&mdash;a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times&mdash;came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday&rsquo;s meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of &ldquo;most vulnerable sections&rdquo;, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The <a href="http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59" title="http://im4change.org/articles.php?articleId=59">National Food Security Act</a> must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,&rdquo; said the note. &ldquo;The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.&rdquo;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and &ldquo;special observer&rdquo;, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday&rsquo;s meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,&rdquo; said the note, adding that &ldquo;vulnerable groups&rdquo; such as urban homeless and migrants &ldquo;have not been covered in the present Bill&rdquo;.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >This is a difficult task, to redraw India&rsquo;s official poverty line&mdash;which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas&mdash;and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million &ldquo;fair-price&rdquo; shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain &ldquo;to the extent possible&rdquo;; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women&rsquo;s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The note makes a special note of &ldquo;weak accountability and grievance redressal&rdquo; in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >&ldquo;The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,&rdquo; the note says. &ldquo;It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.&rdquo;</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.</font></p><p align="justify"><font ></font></p>'
$lang = 'English'
$SITE_URL = 'https://im4change.in/'
$site_title = 'im4change'
$adminprix = 'admin'

include - APP/Template/Layout/printlayout.ctp, line 8
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1413
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1374
Cake\View\View::renderLayout() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 927
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 885
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 791
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 126
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 94
Cake\Http\BaseApplication::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/BaseApplication.php, line 235
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\RoutingMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/RoutingMiddleware.php, line 162
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Routing\Middleware\AssetMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Routing/Middleware/AssetMiddleware.php, line 88
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Error\Middleware\ErrorHandlerMiddleware::__invoke() - CORE/src/Error/Middleware/ErrorHandlerMiddleware.php, line 96
Cake\Http\Runner::__invoke() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 65
Cake\Http\Runner::run() - CORE/src/Http/Runner.php, line 51

Food Bill | How 3 pages changed govt approach by Samar Halarnkar

The government’s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and “not in the spirit of the election promises” in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday. The three-page note—a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times—came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers (eGoM) after it was pushed by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi to reconsider a draft Food Security Bill. The criticism in this note was at the centre of discussions in Monday’s meeting. Its contents clearly set the agenda for the government: more subsidies, greater recognition of “most vulnerable sections”, wide-ranging reforms of anti-poverty programmes, and greater transparency in their administration. “The National Food Security Act must ensure food for all, addressing the concerns of availability, access and absorption,” said the note. “The present draft addresses none of these sufficiently.” Seven of the eight eGoM ministers, except railway minister Mamata Banerjee, and “special observer”, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, attended Monday’s meeting. With government spending on key food-security related programmes set to exceed Rs1.18 trillion for 2010-11, the highest ever, the note points to the piecemeal approach of the version first cleared by the eGoM on 18 March, before being shot down by Gandhi. “The draft Bill does not cover any of the other food-security related schemes that were meant to be brought under a single umbrella, including mid-day meals, integrated child development services, pensions (old age, widow and disability), maternity benefits etc.,” said the note, adding that “vulnerable groups” such as urban homeless and migrants “have not been covered in the present Bill”. The Planning Commission has now been given three weeks to prepare a note that widens the scope of the Bill. This is a difficult task, to redraw India’s official poverty line—which considers an ability to spend Rs12 per day per person for rural areas and Rs17 per day per person in urban areas—and take the number of poor beyond the current 280 million. The note spends the most of the space on reform of the public distribution system (PDS), the nationwide network to provide subsidized food through 0.5 million “fair-price” shops. It says PDS reforms must focus on: locally bought grain “to the extent possible”; ensure that PDS documents be made public and provided on demand within seven days, at costs prescribed by the Right to Information Act (RTI); shop management by village councils and women’s groups; include coarse grains such as jowar and bajra, beyond wheat and rice. The note makes a special note of “weak accountability and grievance redressal” in the draft Bill cleared by the eGoM. “The same machinery that is responsible for the implementation of the Act is being charged with the oversight/accountability mechanism,” the note says. “It is this conflict of interest that has led to the failure of existing mechanism. The lessons from implementation of the RTI and NREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) are being ignored in the framing of this Act.” Mukherjee, home minister P. Chidambaram, commerce minister Anand Sharma, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, defence minister A.K. Antony and rural development minister C.P. Joshi were present in the meeting.