The National Advisory Council is back with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at its head, promising to give a strong fillip to the UPA government's social sector agenda that is at the heart of the party's political strategy to consolidate its 'aam admi' base. The revival of the NAC, that had folded up following Sonia's resignation after the office-of-profit controversy, has been on the cards since the Supreme Court gave its...

The draft food security bill studiedly sidesteps the real problem An offending official disconnect with the hungry millions of India has been perpetrated by the very group aiming to improve their lot. In the minutes of its meeting of March 12, the empowered Group of Ministers, which cleared a draft food security bill for consideration of the Union cabinet, recorded this audacious passage: “The definition of food security should be limited...

Kaushik Basu, the current Chief Economic Adviser to the Ministry of Finance, had a 15-year-long stint as Professor of Economics at Cornell University. The Padma Bhushan awardee has been working closely with the Finance Ministry and the Prime Minister to chart the country’s future growth path. He spoke to MANAV CHOPRA about the need for better monitoring to ensure growth doesn’t happen at the expense of social justice. Excerpts: A common...

A big push to develop agriculture in the poorest countries is needed if the world is to feed itself in future decades, a report warns. With the world's population soaring to nine billion by mid-century, crop yields must rise, say the authors - yet climate change threatens to slash them. Already the number of chronically hungry people is above one billion. The report was prepared for a major conference on farming...

The proposed Food Security Bill should adopt a three-pronged strategy that constitutes a Universal Public Distribution System for all, low-cost foodgrains to the needy, and convergence in the delivery of nutrition safety net programmes.  In his latest budget speech, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced: “We are now ready with the draft Food Security Bill which will be placed in the public domain very soon.” Although no official draft has been...