Chief economic advisor to the finance ministry Kaushik Basu says the government should step in and acquire land for development projects to protect the interests of farmers. He also explains why the government cannot tackle food inflation by distributing free foodgrain among the poor. Excerpts from interview with ET: A large number of land-intensive project have run into opposition. Could it actually undermine our infrastructure thrust and growth? There is...

The Supreme Court tells the government: "It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor." It could have added: "Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?" And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking — doesn't it know there's no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added:...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was right when he maintained in his meeting with the media that the judiciary should not stray into the realm of policy formulation for food management. But the same plea cannot apply to the media which brought the issue of rotting of foodgrain to public attention and virtually put the government in the dock for criminal wastage of grains in its warehouses. Policy deficiencies are clearly...

Kaushik Basu proposes a new framework for release of foodgrains from government warehouses. Last year, official food inflation peaked at 21.05 per cent for the week ended November 28. Since then, it has eased — though the year-on-year rise of 10.86 per cent for August 21 is still in double-digit territory. Moreover, in absolute terms, the ‘food articles' index for the latest recorded week, at 303.3, is higher than the 296.1 level...

The Union Food Ministry today told the Supreme Court that its suggestion on limiting food procurement to available storage facilities, if put to action, would hit the poor farmer and “drastically impact food security of the nation”. In a 19-page affidavit, C Vishwanath, joint secretary in the Ministry, said: “If Food Corporation of India (FCI) and state government agencies that do the work of procurement were to limit procurement only to...