President Pratiba Patil today said the Centre is consulting state governments on the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA), which will give the poor a legal entitlement to subsidised foodgrains. “The states are being consulted as the success of the programme (NFSA) hinges critically on their commitment to reforms in the public distribution system (PDS),” Ms. Patil said in her address to Parliament to mark the beginning of the Budget Session. The...
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Hard questions about soft questions by P Sainath
There was in fact a successful auction of spectrum — only it was not conducted by the government but by its corporate sector cronies who made a fortune on the deal. On one pronouncement of his, you have to agree with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. His is not a ‘lame-duck government.' Cooked goose seems the more appropriate soubriquet. However, not a single new scam worth over Rs. 1 lakh crore has...
More »Getting food security right by T Nanda Kumar
The first issue in food security is India’s Hunger index. The Global Hunger Index released by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) places India 67th in rankings with a score of 24.1, far below China and below Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal. According to FAO, about 25% of world’s undernourished live in India. The proposed Food Security Act is seen as the key instrument of intervention to remedy this situation. The...
More »CAG finds flaw in PDS beneficiary list
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has found that the Food and Civil Supplies Department of the State neither conducted any survey for identification of beneficiaries nor followed the survey conducted by the Panchayat and Rural Development Department in 1998-99, to select the beneficiaries of the Below Poverty Line (BPL) for the Public Distribution System (PDS). The status as of September 2007, as per the BPL census of 2002,...
More »Centre will table Right to Food Act in Parliament, says Manmohan by Gargi Parsai
Legislation targets poor and vulnerable sections among whom malnutrition was particularly high Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday that the government was committed to bring to Parliament a Right to Food Act which would serve as a viable safety net for the poor and the vulnerable sections among whom malnutrition was particularly high. Addressing an international conference on ‘Leveraging Agriculture for Improving Nutrition and Health,' the Prime Minister said such...
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