Amid no clear consensus emerging on the proposed Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill, the government is likely to move an “open-ended” draft law in Parliament’s Monsoon Session, earmarking 40 to 45 per cent of the net sown area as “reserved agricultural zone” in which there can be no change in land use for at least 10 years. In a move to ensure that agricultural produce is not affected by toxic contamination, the...

India’s fiscal policy is not supportive of monetary measures that the country’s central bank is employing to fight rampant inflation, the prime minister’s honorary economic advisor and former International Monetary Fund chief economist Raghuram Rajan said, while singling out the proposed food security bill as a particular cause for concern. The Bill, which proposes to give about 68 per cent of population the legal right to subsidised food, will not only...

Policies aiming to combat malnutrition are ignoring an entire generation of women whose overall health has a direct bearing on children’s growth, say advocacy groups and researchers Cradling a frail son on her hip and with a plastic bag stuffed with clothes in one hand, Tara Jadam walked into the rehabilitation centre inside the district hospital here to spend the next two weeks. On a hot afternoon, she has walked several miles...

During a meeting between Union Food Minister K V Thomas and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on Tuesday, apprehensions were reportedly expressed regarding the National Advisory Council (NAC) coming out with its own version of the food security bill. The government has been in the process of drafting the proposed Bill based on the recommendations of Sonia Gandhi-led NAC. While the meeting was essentially a consultation between the two ministers over various...

Whether it is in education, health or jobs, there are enormous differences in outcomes in modern India, so much so that it often seems like two countries exist within one. Economic opportunities have undoubtedly expanded for a section of India's population, but there are serious obstacles in the path of many. Nobel laureate and development economist Amartya Sen has written about the 'conversion handicap' which, quite separately from an 'earnings...