-Live Mint CCEA clears recommendations on sugar sector made by Rangarajan panel; subsidy burden to rise Pushing ahead with long-pending reforms of the sugar industry, the cabinet on Thursday approved the dismantling of rules requiring sugar mills to sell the sweetener at below-market prices through the public distribution system (PDS) and abolished curbs on open market sale. The cabinet committee on economic affairs cleared the recommendations made by a panel headed by C....

-The Times of India Finance minister P Chidambaram may have brushed aside the Gujarat model of development but the Centre will now have to comment on the efficacy of the model set up by BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh in implementing targeted public distribution system providing subsidized food grains to the poor. The Supreme Court on Monday sought the Centre's comment on the Raman Singh government's model of TPDS implementation, which was repeatedly cited by...

-The Business Standard FM allocates Rs 10,000 cr to implement the programme; this is apart from the usual food subsidy requirement of Rs 80,000 cr for the year The most ambitious social security programme of the government, the National Food Security Bill, got a leg-up in the 2013-14 Budget, with Finance Minister P Chidambaram allocating Rs 10,000 crore for implementing it. This allocation is over and above the usual food subsidy requirement of...

-Economic and Political Weekly The proposed legislation on the National Food Security Act has been steadily watered down since it was fi rst mooted in 2009. The Parliamentary Standing Committee that examined the 2011 Bill has disappointingly continued with "targeting". If the government passes the bill incorporating the committee's suggestions, a historic opportunity to combat hunger and malnutrition would be lost. Ankita Aggarwal (aggarwal.ankita87@gmail.com) is a Research Scholar at the Centre for...

-Business Today What does the proposed food security law mean for the government's finances? Most days, around half a dozen middleaged men in Tamil Nadu's Nemam village head for a slushy pond. They are farm labourers who have had little work for the past few months because of a drought in their Tiruvarur district. As an alternative they catch fish, but the income from it is not enough to survive on. "But...