-Newsclick.in The government appears to be blithely indifferent to the devastation caused by its food grain mismanagement. The latest available data shows that the allocation of wheat for distribution through the Public Distribution System (PDS)— the RATion system as it is known—has fallen dramatically this year. This has naturally led to a drop in offtake, that is, the distribution to needy families. Till October 2022, 115 lakh tonnes of wheat was allocated from...

-The Hindu Expanding PDS coverage to account for the increase in population since 2011 is a no-brainer; the Government’s resistance to implementing a Supreme Court of India direction is baffling The National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, through the Public Distribution System (PDS), provides a crucial safety net for roughly 800 million people. Even critics of the PDS appreciated its services during the COVID-19 lockdown. The humanitarian crisis resulting from the COVID-19 lockdown,...

There is some respite expected for India in terms of prices of imported commodities. This may ease the depletion of its foreign exchange reserves. The country has faced a widening of its merchandise trade deficit from US$ -17.91 billion to US$ -26.91 billion between October 2021 and October 2022. The commodity price data provided by the World Bank in December 2022 (termed as The Pink Sheet) shows that energy prices plummeted by...

-The Hindu “It would have been better if seed production trials take place in a controlled RATher than in an open environment so as to assess various risks before conducting open field trials,” read a statement by the AIPSN. Following the go-ahead for production and field testing of hybrid seeds of genetically modified (GM) mustard, All-India Peoples Science Network (AIPSN) has demanded that the open field tests, if any, be conducted with...

-TheWire.in In India’s growth trajectory, for over a decade, domestic private investment levels have remained consistently low and so has (domestic) manufacturing growth.  As per recent quarterly estimates, India’s growth RATe slowed to 6.3% in the September quarter of 2022-23. There is evidence of a notable contraction in output of manufacturing that’s pulling down growth. This author has previously argued that quarterly growth estimates may not reveal the real state of an economy....