Can we agree in this country on a floor of human dignity below which we will not allow any human being to fall? No child, woman or man in this land will sleep hungry. No person shall be forced to sleep under the open sky. No parent shall send their child out to work instead of to school. And no one shall die because they cannot afford the cost of...

So it's not going to be a normal monsoon . That's hardly surprising. Indian rainfall is erratic in four out of 10 years. About 80% of our land mass is highly vulnerable to drought, floods and cyclones. 50 million Indians are exposed to drought every year. The agriculture ministry says 68% of India's sown area is subject to drought in varying degrees. Annual average rainfall is 1,160 mm. However, 85% of...

Policies aiming to combat malnutrition are ignoring an entire generation of women whose overall health has a direct bearing on children’s growth, say advocacy groups and researchers Cradling a frail son on her hip and with a plastic bag stuffed with clothes in one hand, Tara Jadam walked into the rehabilitation centre inside the district hospital here to spend the next two weeks. On a hot afternoon, she has walked several miles...

Areas where food supplies could be worst hit by climate change have been identified in a report. Some areas in the tropics face famine because of failing food production, an international research group says. The Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) predicts large parts of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa will be worst affected. Its report points out that hundreds of millions of people in these regions are already experiencing a food...

The National Advisory Council has proposed a framework for the National Food Security Act. But its potential could be wasted by a flawed approach to the PDS. Two years have passed since the Central government announced that a draft National Food Security Act (NFSA) would be posted on the Food Ministry's website “very soon.” After prolonged deliberations, a detailed framework for this Act has recently been proposed by the National Advisory...