Prime minister Manmohan Singh has enlisted the Planning Commission's support to reconcile varying views on the proposed food security legislation . Singh has asked the commission to suggest the best possible framework for the Food Security Act after several members of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) objected to the suggestion of a government panel to restrict coverage of the ambitious scheme. The proposed legislation seeks to provide legal guarantee of...

Evidence is mounting on the ill-effects of Endosulfan sprayed on cashew plantations in Kasaragod district, even as the Union government continues to be ambivalent on the issue. A survey done by the Health Department has identified nearly 4,000 victims after screening 16,000. The household survey and the screening done in 11 affected panchayats during December and January identified 3,937 victims, besides 336 in nearby panchayats. The numbers are likely to go...

About four years after its first survey on the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in Orissa's hinterlands that showed large-scale defalcation of money, the Delhi-based NGO Centre for Environment and Food Security today in its second performance audit revealed that 67 per cent of very poor Dalit and tribal households in Orissa and UP did not get even a single day of the NREGS employment during previous...

Kerala and Tamil Nadu with the lowest calorie consumption seem to show better health outcome indicators This report, a joint initiative by the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation — an institution with a remarkable long term commitment to issues related to food security — and the United Nations World Food Programme, should serve as an excellent hand book on urban food insecurity. Aside from providing all the relevant information in a consolidated...

The way number of poor in India is measured is under a legal scrutiny. The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the government in Right To Food case the efficacy of the below poverty line survey, to be held in June this year, if all the poor identified fail to get government benefit. The court asked the government to give reasons for the Planning Commission putting up a cap on the...