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/separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284/print'
		[protected] base => ''
		[protected] webroot => '/'
		[protected] here => '/latest-news-updates/separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284/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/separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284/print'
		[protected] base => ''
		[protected] webroot => '/'
		[protected] here => '/latest-news-updates/separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284/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('cakeErr68050a716a15d-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-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="cakeErr68050a716a15d-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr68050a716a15d-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">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr68050a716a15d-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$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) 3197,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal&#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;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&amp;quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &amp;mdash; doesn&#039;t it know there&#039;s no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &amp;quot;Haven&#039;t you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&amp;quot; This is the government&#039;s contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.&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 Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?&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;Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.&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 government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &amp;mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.&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;Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.&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;Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It&#039;s routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India&#039;s competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.&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;The Hindustan Times, 11 September, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/Separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff/H1-Article1-598633.aspx&#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;separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284&#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) 3284,
		&#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) 3197,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;PDS,Right to Food,Food Security&#039;,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;




The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&amp;quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &amp;mdash; doesn&#039;t it know there&#039;s no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &amp;quot;Haven&#039;t you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&amp;quot; This is the government&#039;s contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &amp;mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It&#039;s routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India&#039;s competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.&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) 3197,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal&#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;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&amp;quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &amp;mdash; doesn&#039;t it know there&#039;s no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &amp;quot;Haven&#039;t you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&amp;quot; This is the government&#039;s contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.&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 Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?&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;Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.&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 government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &amp;mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.&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;Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.&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;Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It&#039;s routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India&#039;s competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.&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;The Hindustan Times, 11 September, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/Separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff/H1-Article1-598633.aspx&#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;separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284&#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) 3284,
	&#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) {},
		(int) 2 =&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) 3197
$metaTitle = &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal&#039;
$metaKeywords = &#039;PDS,Right to Food,Food Security&#039;
$metaDesc = &#039;




The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&amp;quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &amp;mdash; doesn&#039;t it know there&#039;s no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &amp;quot;Haven&#039;t you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&amp;quot; This is the government&#039;s contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &amp;mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It&#039;s routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India&#039;s competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.&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/separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284.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 | Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="




The Supreme Court tells the government: &quot;It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&quot; It could have added: &quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at..."/>
    <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>Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal</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 ></font></p><p align="justify"><br /><font >The Supreme Court tells the government: &quot;It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&quot; It could have added: &quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &mdash; doesn't it know there's no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &quot;Haven't you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&quot; This is the government's contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It's routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India's competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.</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('cakeErr68050a716a15d-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-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="cakeErr68050a716a15d-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr68050a716a15d-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">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr68050a716a15d-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$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) 3197,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal&#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;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&amp;quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &amp;mdash; doesn&#039;t it know there&#039;s no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &amp;quot;Haven&#039;t you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&amp;quot; This is the government&#039;s contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.&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 Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?&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;Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.&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 government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &amp;mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.&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;Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.&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;Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It&#039;s routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India&#039;s competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.&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;The Hindustan Times, 11 September, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/Separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff/H1-Article1-598633.aspx&#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;separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284&#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) 3284,
		&#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) 3197,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;PDS,Right to Food,Food Security&#039;,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;




The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&amp;quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &amp;mdash; doesn&#039;t it know there&#039;s no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &amp;quot;Haven&#039;t you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&amp;quot; This is the government&#039;s contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &amp;mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It&#039;s routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India&#039;s competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.&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) 3197,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal&#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;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&amp;quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &amp;mdash; doesn&#039;t it know there&#039;s no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &amp;quot;Haven&#039;t you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&amp;quot; This is the government&#039;s contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.&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 Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?&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;Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.&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 government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &amp;mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.&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;Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.&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;Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It&#039;s routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India&#039;s competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.&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;The Hindustan Times, 11 September, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/Separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff/H1-Article1-598633.aspx&#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;separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284&#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) 3284,
	&#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) {},
		(int) 2 =&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) 3197
$metaTitle = &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal&#039;
$metaKeywords = &#039;PDS,Right to Food,Food Security&#039;
$metaDesc = &#039;




The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&amp;quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &amp;mdash; doesn&#039;t it know there&#039;s no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &amp;quot;Haven&#039;t you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&amp;quot; This is the government&#039;s contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &amp;mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It&#039;s routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India&#039;s competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.&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/separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284.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 | Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="




The Supreme Court tells the government: &quot;It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&quot; It could have added: &quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at..."/>
    <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>Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal</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 ></font></p><p align="justify"><br /><font >The Supreme Court tells the government: &quot;It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&quot; It could have added: &quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &mdash; doesn't it know there's no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &quot;Haven't you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&quot; This is the government's contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It's routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India's competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.</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('cakeErr68050a716a15d-trace').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-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="cakeErr68050a716a15d-trace" class="cake-stack-trace" style="display: none;"><a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-code').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-code').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Code</a> <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-context').style.display = (document.getElementById('cakeErr68050a716a15d-context').style.display == 'none' ? '' : 'none')">Context</a><pre id="cakeErr68050a716a15d-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">$article_current</span><span style="color: #007700">-&gt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">seo_url</span><span style="color: #007700">;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">?&gt;</span>.html"/&gt;
</span></code></span>
<code><span style="color: #000000"><span style="color: #0000BB">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #007700">&lt;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">meta&nbsp;http</span><span style="color: #007700">-</span><span style="color: #0000BB">equiv</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"Content-Type"&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #0000BB">content</span><span style="color: #007700">=</span><span style="color: #DD0000">"text/html;&nbsp;charset=utf-8"</span><span style="color: #007700">/&gt;
</span></span></code></pre><pre id="cakeErr68050a716a15d-context" class="cake-context" style="display: none;">$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) 3197,
		&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal&#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;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&amp;quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &amp;mdash; doesn&#039;t it know there&#039;s no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &amp;quot;Haven&#039;t you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&amp;quot; This is the government&#039;s contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.&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 Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?&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;Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.&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 government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &amp;mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.&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;Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.&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;Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It&#039;s routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India&#039;s competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.&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;The Hindustan Times, 11 September, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/Separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff/H1-Article1-598633.aspx&#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;separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284&#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) 3284,
		&#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) 3197,
	&#039;metaTitle&#039; =&gt; &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal&#039;,
	&#039;metaKeywords&#039; =&gt; &#039;PDS,Right to Food,Food Security&#039;,
	&#039;metaDesc&#039; =&gt; &#039;




The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at...&#039;,
	&#039;disp&#039; =&gt; &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&amp;quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &amp;mdash; doesn&#039;t it know there&#039;s no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &amp;quot;Haven&#039;t you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&amp;quot; This is the government&#039;s contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &amp;mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It&#039;s routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India&#039;s competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.&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) 3197,
	&#039;title&#039; =&gt; &#039;Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal&#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;&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;
&lt;br /&gt;
&lt;font face=&quot;arial,helvetica,sans-serif&quot; size=&quot;3&quot;&gt;The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&amp;quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &amp;mdash; doesn&#039;t it know there&#039;s no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &amp;quot;Haven&#039;t you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&amp;quot; This is the government&#039;s contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.&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 Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?&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;Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.&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 government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &amp;mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.&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;Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.&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;Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It&#039;s routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India&#039;s competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.&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;The Hindustan Times, 11 September, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/Separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff/H1-Article1-598633.aspx&#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;separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284&#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) 3284,
	&#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) {},
		(int) 2 =&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) 3197
$metaTitle = &#039;LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal&#039;
$metaKeywords = &#039;PDS,Right to Food,Food Security&#039;
$metaDesc = &#039;




The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at...&#039;
$disp = &#039;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Supreme Court tells the government: &amp;quot;It&#039;s criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&amp;quot; It could have added: &amp;quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&amp;quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &amp;mdash; doesn&#039;t it know there&#039;s no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &amp;quot;Haven&#039;t you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&amp;quot; This is the government&#039;s contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;The government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &amp;mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p align=&quot;justify&quot;&gt;&lt;font &gt;Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It&#039;s routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India&#039;s competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.&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/separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284.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 | Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal | Im4change.org</title>
    <meta name="description" content="




The Supreme Court tells the government: &quot;It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&quot; It could have added: &quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at..."/>
    <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>Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal</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 ></font></p><p align="justify"><br /><font >The Supreme Court tells the government: &quot;It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&quot; It could have added: &quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &mdash; doesn't it know there's no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &quot;Haven't you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&quot; This is the government's contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It's routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India's competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.</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) 3197,
		'title' => 'Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal',
		'subheading' => '',
		'description' => '<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3"></font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<br />
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The Supreme Court tells the government: &quot;It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&quot; It could have added: &quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &mdash; doesn't it know there's no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &quot;Haven't you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&quot; This is the government's contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It's routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India's competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3"></font>
</p>',
		'credit_writer' => 'The Hindustan Times, 11 September, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/Separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff/H1-Article1-598633.aspx',
		'article_img' => '',
		'article_img_thumb' => '',
		'status' => (int) 1,
		'show_on_home' => (int) 1,
		'lang' => 'EN',
		'category_id' => (int) 16,
		'tag_keyword' => '',
		'seo_url' => 'separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284',
		'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) 3284,
		'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) 3197,
	'metaTitle' => 'LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal',
	'metaKeywords' => 'PDS,Right to Food,Food Security',
	'metaDesc' => '




The Supreme Court tells the government: &quot;It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&quot; It could have added: &quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at...',
	'disp' => '<p align="justify"><font ></font></p><p align="justify"><br /><font >The Supreme Court tells the government: &quot;It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&quot; It could have added: &quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &mdash; doesn't it know there's no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &quot;Haven't you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&quot; This is the government's contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It's routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India's competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.</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) 3197,
	'title' => 'Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal',
	'subheading' => '',
	'description' => '<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3"></font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<br />
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The Supreme Court tells the government: &quot;It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&quot; It could have added: &quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &mdash; doesn't it know there's no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &quot;Haven't you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&quot; This is the government's contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">The government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3">Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It's routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India's competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.</font>
</p>
<p align="justify">
<font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="3"></font>
</p>',
	'credit_writer' => 'The Hindustan Times, 11 September, 2010, http://www.hindustantimes.com/Separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff/H1-Article1-598633.aspx',
	'article_img' => '',
	'article_img_thumb' => '',
	'status' => (int) 1,
	'show_on_home' => (int) 1,
	'lang' => 'EN',
	'category_id' => (int) 16,
	'tag_keyword' => '',
	'seo_url' => 'separate-the-wheat-from-the-chaff-by-pratik-kanjilal-3284',
	'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) 3284,
	'created' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	'modified' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
	'edate' => '',
	'tags' => [
		(int) 0 => object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 1 => object(Cake\ORM\Entity) {},
		(int) 2 => 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) 3197
$metaTitle = 'LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal'
$metaKeywords = 'PDS,Right to Food,Food Security'
$metaDesc = '




The Supreme Court tells the government: &quot;It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&quot; It could have added: &quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at...'
$disp = '<p align="justify"><font ></font></p><p align="justify"><br /><font >The Supreme Court tells the government: &quot;It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor.&quot; It could have added: &quot;Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?&quot; And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking &mdash; doesn't it know there's no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: &quot;Haven't you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live.&quot; This is the government's contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change?</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >The government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue &mdash; the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots.</font></p><p align="justify"><font >Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It's routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India's competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.</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

Separate the wheat from the chaff by Pratik Kanjilal

The Supreme Court tells the government: "It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor." It could have added: "Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?" And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking — doesn't it know there's no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added: "Haven't you read my bestselling Food Security Bill? The critics went wild over it. And the movie will be bigger than Peepli Live." This is the government's contribution to the debate on hunger in a chronically hungry superpower. The Supreme Court is not meddling. It is empowered to question wonky policy, and work by activists, public intellectuals, economists, media and the government itself shows that food security policy has gone to pot. Even the Food Security Bill is a cop-out, offering only foodgrains in insufficient quantities. Its menu sells small meals and no side orders, a recipe for perpetuating undernutrition. Besides, the court has been hearing public interest cases on this issue for a decade, and this order is only the latest of more than five dozen it has passed. So why did the prime minister think it was out of line, and impractical besides? Is it only the fear of change? Food rots because the government lifts twice the tonnage it can stow safely. It does this out of a historical commitment to farmers to buy produce at minimum support prices (MSP). This protects them from adverse market conditions, builds food reserves and thus promotes the Directive Principles of the Constitution. But the very same principles should urge it to give away to the needy surpluses that it cannot store. The government protests that it cannot do that on purely financial grounds, with no reference to the Constitution. It would inflate the subsidy bill. And if it did not lift produce at MSP even when it could not store it, farmers would lose the incentive to produce and agriculture would collapse. And so the virtuous circle must continue — the grain-farmer produces, fails to get a decent price, sells to the government at the MSP and earns a basic living while government lets the produce rot. Meanwhile, millions go hungry. Can we not break the circle and separate the Gandhian need to support farmers from the equally Gandhian priority of feeding the poor? It is painlessly done if we recognise that the MSP is itself a wasteful and needlessly complicated subsidy. Neighbouring Bangladesh is experimenting with direct cash subsidies to farmers. It is cheaper to let farmers sell part of their produce on the open market and compensate them for lost profits than to stockpile and destroy food. Alternatively, it is cheaper to give away excess food immediately and locally after procurement than to hoard it until it rots. Maybe a reluctance to give freebies is at work here. But there is such a thing as a free lunch. It's routinely given to the rich in the form of tax holidays and business incentives, with the legitimate aim of increasing India's competitiveness. We can give to the poor just as legitimately, to build a better manpower base. And, of course, a healthier society.