-Down to Earth The most controversial aspect of the food security law is the restructuring of the public distribution system to cover an unprecedented 67 per cent of the population, most of them in the poorer states. LATHA JISHNU, JYOTIKA SOOD and SUCHITRA M explain why there are winners and losers in the new dispensation and how states with better PDS will have to find huge resources to keep their numbers...

-Down to Earth Development economist JEAN DREZE, known for his work on issues such as hunger, famine, social and human development in India, child health and education is not particularly happy with the way the National Food Security Bill has turned out. Although the proposed law has changed dramatically from the time Dreze pushed it during his days at the National Advisory Council, he is campaigning actively for its passage. Currently,...

-The Business Standard Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa in a letter to the Prime Minister said "the newly introduced proviso leaves the fixation of the issue price to the discretion of the Central Government. Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government today said that the newly introduced proviso leaves in the Food Security Bill for the fixation of the issue price to the discretion of the Central Government would lead to an additional burden...

-Down to Earth Our policy makers should move away from the income criterion for estimating poverty and take cognisance of other indicators Amid mounting criticism and heated debates about the poverty line, a challenge has resurfaced to examine whether there could be a single non-monetary criterion of estimating poverty. A poverty line is a monetary cut-off point below which a person is deemed to be poor. Thus, any attempt to measure poverty...

-Economic and Political Weekly The government has notified a Draft Land Reforms Policy which, on paper, has all the requisites of an earnest programme. Yet, the near total failure of earlier efforts at land reforms in India leave little room for hope that something substantial will at last be done to combat landlessness. Harsh Mander (manderharsh@gmail.com) is with the Centre for Equity Studies, New Delhi, and works with survivors of mass violence,...