Sonia-led council to discuss “procedures” and Food Security Bill The Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC), in its second avatar, is looking to expand its mandate. On Thursday, when its members assemble for its first substantive meeting, the NAC will discuss “procedures,” alongside the crucial — and now controversial — Food Security Bill, while a sub-committee will tackle the Communal Violence Bill. The Communal Violence Bill will come up before the NAC...
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Minimum solace price
While it may appear paradoxical that at a time when the government is fighting inflationary pressures, it has chosen to hike the minimum support price (MSP) for foodgrains, the reality is that prevailing market prices for almost all foodgrains, oilseeds and cereals are way above even these newly announced prices. Therefore, despite the substantial hike in MSP for kharif crops, especially for pulses, the impact on both market and farmers’...
More »Not by price alone
The Centre's decision to raise the minimum support price (MSP) sharply for pulses, moderately for coarse cereals and oil seeds, and not at all for rice and cotton (the nominal hike for rice merely rolls in the bonus offered last year) is right, in the conventional sense. The signal against increasing acreage for rice this kharif is sound, given the huge stocks with the government. The signalling is right, too,...
More »Put millets back on the plate by Biraj Patnaik
One of the key demands of the Right to Food Campaign for the National Food Security Act is to re-introduce nutritious millets to government food programmes like the public distribution system. Millets like bajra, jowar, kodo, kutki and ragi among hundreds of other varieties have sustained communities for close to 10,000 years in India. Yet, they have been marginalized as food crops since the days of the Green Revolution in...
More »Food security to top agenda at first NAC meeting by Smita Gupta
Food security is likely to top the resurrected National Advisory Council's (NAC) agenda when its members gather here on Thursday for their introductory meeting. They will also meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. However, sources in the NAC told The Hindu that before food security became a reality, they expect a long hard battle ahead, similar to the one NAC-I faced over the enactment of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act,...
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