Is the Government stepping back from its responsibility under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) by giving technical reasons? Civil society organizations, which struggled to enact the Right to Food legislation, doubt that this may be the case. It has been alleged recently by several civil society activists that the Government is rolling back the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY), which is meant for food security of the extremely poor households,...

-The Hindu Business Line Calls for restructuring Nafed for effective procurement of pulses, oilseeds   Bengaluru: The Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) has made a pitch for encouraging water use efficiency in agriculture. As part of its non-price policy recommendations for kharif 2015-16, the crop advisory body has suggested that States fix quantitative ceilings on per hectare use of both water and electricity. The farm sector accounts for about 83 per cent...

-The Hindu The 2013 Act was supposed to have been implemented by July 5, 2014 The Centre’s resolve to rid the country of hunger will be tested with a petition being filed in the Supreme Court challenging the year-long delay in implementing the Right to Food Act and validity of three administrative directions issued by the government, postponing food and cash entitlements from reaching the poor. A petition filed by the People’s Union...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre plans to change the criteria for selecting the beneficiaries of its rural housing scheme for the poor, dropping the earlier poverty-list-based method for one that uses a points system based on the ongoing caste census. The government believes the proposed reform will achieve better targeting by including deserving families left out of the below-poverty-line (BPL) list, but critics feel it would leave a huge number of...

-Livemint.com The RBI norms towards targeted marginal lending for the small farmer is a structural solution to aid them—unlike bailout packages, which provide only short-term relief In its latest overhaul of priority sector lending rules, the central bank has stipulated that lenders should funnel at least 8% of their credit to small and marginal farmers. While the overall agriculture loan growth has galloped over the past decade, the chart shows why...