If a country’s national income is rising, someone in the country must be getting richer. Unless income distribution is changing, all income classes must get richer at about the same pace. If a constant standard of living is defined to classify everyone below it as poor, then as incomes rise, the proportion of the poor so defined must shrink, eventually to zero. If income grows 5 per cent a year...

The ongoing floods in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharasthra have pushed millions of rural folks below the poverty line. The tragedy which is far from over has exposed the anomalies in the system of categorization of BPL families as proposed in the concept note of the Food Security Act. More than 200 people have died and over 2.5 million rendered homeless in AP and Karnataka alone. Almost all farmers in...

The time has come for a comprehensive right-to-food law to tackle the deprivation and food insecurity that haunts India.  Over the last decade or so, a series of developments have drawn attention to the problem of food security. These are the persistence of hunger in many parts of the country being juxtaposed with food surpluses and stocks; the adverse impact of globalisation on agriculture and rising food prices resulting in...

They contest Planning Commission’s poverty estimates  Food Bill exercise calls for detailed discussion and exclusive meeting: States Transfer of food subsidy in cash to BPL families won’t serve the purpose: Maharashtra The Centre has asked the States to put a cap on the number of Below Poverty Line (BPL) beneficiaries under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) for purposes of theproposed National Food Security Bill. It also wants the BPL...

UPA's promised blanket of food security backed by a law could shrink very quickly leaving several crore families out of its cover if the food ministry's proposal on Food Security Act finds favour with the Cabinet. In a note that has left several state governments seething with anger, the food ministry has recommended that the number of families that get subsidised foodgrain under the Food Security Act be reduced to...