P Sainath, Rural Affairs Editor, The Hindu and 2007 Magsaysay award winner, shares with Pradeep Baisakh his views on the POSCO project, Odisha farmers’ suicides and the National food security bill You have visited Odisha quite often. How, in your view, has it changed in the last 20 years? Inequalities have increased massively. Earlier, we used to hire jeeps which were falling apart. Today, to go to Kalahandi, you have Innovas,...
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Food security law could push up world prices, widen subsidy bill by Surojit Gupta & Sidhartha
The proposed Food Security Act has the potential to stoke global food prices and significantly increase the country's food subsidy bill, officials and experts say. The government plans to introduce a legislation which aims to ensure food security for 75% of the rural households and 50% of the urban areas and includes both below poverty line and above poverty line families. Experts say that in case there is a drought in future...
More »Urban poor, tribal welfare on NAC radar
-The Times of India With the National food security bill out of the way, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) will now take up issues like urban poverty, especially the vulnerable groups, and reforms in the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Area) Act on a priority basis. Sources said the NAC had already begun consultation on reforms in the PESA. The Act, which has been lying largely in a limbo,...
More »Farm IP, Enter WIPO by Latha Jishnu
Developing countries will now have to battle IP issues related to new agricultural technologies at WIPO instead of WTO The World Intellectual Property Organization has announced clearly that it intends to play a role—and considering the clout WIPO enjoys it implies a significant part—in promoting intellectual property (IP) in agriculture to enhance productivity. The UN body stepped into this touchy arena with a seminar at its Geneva headquarters that has gone...
More »NFIW against cash transfers in lieu of foodgrains
-The Hindu NFIW criticises the approach for targeted PDS and cash transfers The National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) fears that the government plans to do away with the public distribution system (PDS) and move to cash transfers in lieu of foodgrains to the poor through the proposed National food security bill. Demanding that the proposed Bill provide for universal entitlements, decentralised production and procurement, the NFIW has criticised the approach for...
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