Developing countries should act now to head off their own "obesity epidemic", says a global policy group. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says obesity levels are rising fast. In a report in the Lancet medical journal, it says low-income countries cannot cope with the health consequences of wide scale obesity. Rates in Brazil and South Africa already outstrip the OECD average. Increasing obesity in industrialised countries such as the UK and...
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No right to food yet! by Praful Bidwai
India has missed a historic opportunity to abolish hunger through a universal public distribution system (PDS), which entitles all citizens to affordable food. The National Advisory Council (NAC), a progressive body established by the United Progressive Alliance, was to draft such a law, but has recommended a Bill which greatly reduces the public's entitlements. This is a setback. India's annual per capita cereal consumption has fallen to 174 kg, lower than...
More »Food Security Sans PDS: Universalization Through Targeting? by Smita Gupta
The case of the Food Security Bill gets curiouser and curiouser. What started off as a fight between universalization and targeting has ended (or so it would seem) in a complete victory in the National Advisory Council, Government of India (NAC) for targeting through universalization (if such a thing was possible), with the honourable exception of Prof Jean Dreze, who has to be commended for his ‘note of disagreement’. On...
More »Food security to cost Rs 72,000 crore by Devika Banerji & Ajay Modi
The National Advisory Council (NAC) recommendation to guarantee foodgrain to two-thirds of the country’s population could bloat the government’s food subsidy spend by 26 per cent to over Rs 72,000 crore — equivalent to over 1 per cent of the gross domestic product. The foodgrain guarantee is part of the proposed National Food Security Bill. This is a conservative figure, compared with the Rs 78,000 crore estimated by Deutsche Bank in...
More »Posco paid for study on Posco by Priscilla Jebaraj
Claims about the benefits of Posco's $12 billion integrated steel project to Orissa's economy and job market come from a study by an “independent” research organisation — but was paid for by Posco itself. In January 2007, the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) published a report on ‘Social Cost Benefit Analysis of the POSCO Steel Project in Orissa,' which claimed that the project would directly and indirectly generate 8.7...
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