-The Times of India Leaders of four Left parties "CPM, CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc" on Tuesday handed over a memorandum signed by four crore people demanding effective food security law to the prime minister. Left leaders, including Prakash Karat (CPM), S Sudhakar Reddy (CPI), Debabrata Biswas (Forward Bloc) and T J Chandrachoodan (RSP) met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and urged him to bring a food security legislation in the ongoing budget...

-First Post With 10 state assembly elections this year and the general election in the next, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) faces possibly its sternest challenge since it returned to power in 2009. It goes without saying that the forthcoming electoral tests have been compounded by the perceptibly declining political standing of the ruling alliance caused by multiple scams and economic stagnation. In addition, defeats in a series of elections ranging...

-Live Mint In an interview, India’s food minister says the Bill is about making the Right to Food a legal entitlement Prospects for the National Food Security (NFS) Bill—United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s dream legislation—haven’t looked better. Food minister K.V. Thomas, in charge of fine-tuning the contours of the Bill, is confident of steering it through Parliament during the budget session. In an interview, Thomas said the Bill isn’t merely...

-The Times of India Why isn't aam admi smiling? The question's relevant, since some cheer's apparent in government circles over wholesale price index-based inflation falling to 6.62% in January. Headline inflation, it's said, will drop further by March-end. To common people, the WPI inflation figure's a meaningless number. If WPI inflation's dipped a fourth successive month, food prices have been riding high for far longer. Policymakers periodically recommend release of Foodgrains from...

-Economic and Political Weekly The proposed legislation on the National Food Security Act has been steadily watered down since it was fi rst mooted in 2009. The Parliamentary Standing Committee that examined the 2011 Bill has disappointingly continued with "targeting". If the government passes the bill incorporating the committee's suggestions, a historic opportunity to combat hunger and malnutrition would be lost. Ankita Aggarwal (aggarwal.ankita87@gmail.com) is a Research Scholar at the Centre for...