In its zeal to make low-priced food available to as many as possible, the majority on the National Advisory Council may deal a mortal blow to farmers and output, warn farmer groups. The proposal to distribute low-priced foodgrain to 80 per cent of the rural population has nothing in it to incentivise cultivation. Vijay Jawandhia of the Shetkari Sangathana says the least the NAC could have done was to recommend that...

In its final recommendations on the proposed Food Security Act, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council finally has acknowledged the twin constraints of the budget and the availability of foodgrains by stopping short of “universalisation” of a government-guaranteed right to subsidised food. Given the NAC’s composition and remit, its recommendation is likely to influence the final draft. The NAC still leans in favour of spreading the targeting net too wide, and...

The NREGS is restricted. The PDS is targeted. Only exploitation is universal. The rotting of lakhs of tonnes of foodgrain in open yards, while shocking, is hardly new or surprising. Remember the rural poor marching on godowns in Andhra Pradesh in 2001 in similar circumstances? The Supreme Court was quite right in jolting the Union government. “In a country where admittedly people are starving, it is a crime to waste even...

Tired, bored? Next time you reach for that can of energy drink, pause. For, the food safety authority cautions against excessive use. Energy drinks of various brands that have flooded the market and are available over the counter — in cigarette shops, pubs and even departmental stores — are the new manna for the youth. Precisely why the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has now proposed a...

One of the key demands of the Right to Food Campaign for the National Food Security Act is to re-introduce nutritious millets to government food programmes like the public distribution system. Millets like bajra, jowar, kodo, kutki and ragi among hundreds of other varieties have sustained communities for close to 10,000 years in India. Yet, they have been marginalized as food crops since the days of the Green Revolution in...