The case of the Food Security Bill gets curiouser and curiouser. What started off as a fight between universalization and targeting has ended (or so it would seem) in a complete victory in the National Advisory Council, Government of India (NAC) for targeting through universalization (if such a thing was possible), with the honourable exception of Prof Jean Dreze, who has to be commended for his ‘note of disagreement’. On...
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Food security to cost Rs 72,000 crore by Devika Banerji & Ajay Modi
The National Advisory Council (NAC) recommendation to guarantee foodgrain to two-thirds of the country’s population could bloat the government’s food subsidy spend by 26 per cent to over Rs 72,000 crore — equivalent to over 1 per cent of the gross domestic product. The foodgrain guarantee is part of the proposed National Food Security Bill. This is a conservative figure, compared with the Rs 78,000 crore estimated by Deutsche Bank in...
More »The Wages of Discontent by Aruna Roy and Nikhil Dey
The Union government is reneging on its legal obligation to pay minimum wages, even to the most deprived sections of the population, in the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. If anyone wants to study the capacity of India's policymakers to turn a progressive piece of legislation upside down, the wage policy under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is a good place to...
More »Agricultural growth remains central to poverty reduction, says report
One billion people worldwide still live in extreme poverty Agricultural growth remains central to poverty reduction, as one billion people worldwide continue living in extreme poverty, many of them in rural areas, a World Bank Group on agriculture, the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), said in a report released on Tuesday. Drawing on the World Bank Group's (WBG) experience in supporting agricultural growth in the past decade, the report — Growth and Productivity...
More »Hunger remains despite high growth: US study
THE high economic growth in India, unlike in the case of China, has not translated into a rapid reduction of hunger in India, a US-based policy think-tank has said. India ranks 67th in an 84-country ranking and has more hungry people than its neighbouring countries. “Higher growth rates in India has not been translated into hunger reduction,” Ashok Gulati , Director Asia, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) said after the release...
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