Ten persons, including two Deputy Directors, have been arrested in connection with two scams in the Public Distribution Scheme in Kishtwar and Rajouri districts of Jammu and Kashmir, sources said on Tuesday. The Crime Branch of Police conducted raids at the premises of the Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution (CAPD) department in Srinagar, Anantnag and Jammu on Monday and arrested the four accused officials in connection with misappropriation of food grains...

The BJP today slammed the UPA government and said inspite of reprimand by Supreme Court the Centre seems little concerned about Rs 58,000 crore worth of food grains rotting in FCI godowns. Around 180 lakh tones food grain is lying in open at various open godowns in Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan and UP belonging to government under central pool, BJP National Secretary Kirit Somaiya told reporters here. The Food Corporation...

"To implement the NAC's two proposals, the grain requirement is estimated to be over 70 million tonnes. We have shared that any requirement of the grain over 55 million tonnes would be difficult to meet," an official source said. The latest challenge to the proposed food security law has come from the government’s procurement agencies as the Food Ministry procures only 55 million tonnes of foodgrains a year against the 70...

A recent report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, provides a damning indictment of the role of speculation in food commodities in fuelling the global food crisis. The report – 'Food Commodities Speculation and Food Price Crisis – was released on the eve of an emergency meeting of the UN-FAO on the instability in agricultural markets. The global food crisis in 2007-08 led to...

The department of food and public distribution has rejected both proposals of the National Advisory Council (NAC) to provide food security, saying the government risked running up against supply constraints and taking on an unsustainable fiscal burden. The rejection by the ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution means that both NAC, headed by Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, and the government will have to go back to the drawing board...