-The Hindu Department has received 19,000 applications for new cards Kolar (Karnataka): Kolar district has 3,30,990 families eligible for ration cards but the number of ration cards issued in the district stands at 3,58,284 - a clear pointer to the large number of bogus cards under the Public Distribution System. This came to light at a review meeting chaired by Minister of State for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Dinesh Gundu Rao...

-The Economic Times The monsoon made a dream start this year. Bountiful rainfall in June has prepared the ground for bumper harvest and lower food inflation. But don't celebrate. Look beyond the immediate future and good monsoon this year may not really be good news. It has merely delayed an agricultural crisis, which our complacent policymakers perhaps need to jolt them into action. With food demand rising in step with the growing...

-The Hindu Uttarakhand reiterates that our rulers have contemptuous disregard for the advice of the best scientists and would rather listen to contractors and builders to whom they are beholden for funds In the early 1980s, while doing research on the environmental history of Uttarakhand, I sometimes visited the library of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology in Dehradun. Most of the journals in the library dealt with geology and earth sciences,...

-The Business Standard The right to food is finally becoming a lively political issue in India. Aware of the forthcoming general elections, parties are competing to demonstrate - or at least proclaim - their commitment to food security. In a country where endemic undernutrition has been accepted for too long as natural, this is a breakthrough of sorts. The food security Bill is a modest initiative. It consolidates various food-related programmes and...

-Frontline Professor Sukhpal Singh, a faculty member of the Centre for Management of Agriculture at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, has been researching and documenting the process of contract farming and food supply chains in India for more than a decade. He is of the view that the small farmer is being excluded in the method currently in place, which defeats the very purpose of improving Indian agriculture. Sukhpal Singh,...