-Times Now TV   It is allies versus the Congress over the draft Food Security Bill. Sources have told TIMES NOW that Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has expressed his reservations over the Food Bill over its huge financial implications on the Government as it proposes to increase food subsidy by over 30,000 crore on a Government already under massive financial stress and over the need for greater food grain procurement to...

The government believes it is more important to be seen to be doing things than to be doing them well. The proposed food security legislation is another example of this tendency. The legislation exemplifies the self-defeating obduracy of bureaucratic modes of thinking. But the debate around it also exemplifies a failure of intellectual argument in India. Our debates often have this character. First, we spend a lot more time arguing...

How deluded we are when we think that when an important piece of legislation is introduced, policymakers carefully scrutinise it for some room for improvement. Indian democracy is good at passing progressive-sounding legislation that becomes unpopular later for poor implementation and a consequent feeling of letdown and therefore resentment. Often the problems of poor implementation that surface later stem from small mistakes in design that could have been corrected at...

-The Indian Express   The government today claimed there has been an "impressive improvement" in the performance of the targeted public distribution system (TPDS), with leakage reduced to about 10-15 per cent on average now from 40 per cent earlier. "The leakage, on an average, is nearly 10-15 per cent," said Minister of State for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution KV Thomas said in a reply during Question Hour in the Rajya Sabha. The...

The Centre has decided to include the Scheduled Tribes as a category that will, by law, be provided subsidised food grains through the public distribution system under the proposed National Food Security Bill. The final draft also provides for supply of “ready cooked hot breakfast” to eligible school children in addition to the mid-day meals under the Integrated Child Development Scheme. Highly placed sources told The Hindu that that the Union...