-The Hindu India's hard won gains in achieving food security are in danger of being undermined by a clause in the National Food Security Bill that encourages States to adopt cash transfers in lieu of food entitlements under the Public Distribution System (PDS). Supporting this view, a recent report by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) concluded that the provision of food subsidies in the form of cash would...

-The Hindu Business Line Mother Nature possesses bountiful natural resources. After all, it is not for nothing that our planet is today supporting a seven billion human population, besides a large number of other living beings with varying survival requirements. Till around the end of the 19th century, agriculture, in the form it was practised, provided more or less enough food to sustain the human population of that time. This is...

-Live Mint The failure of the UPA government to get the food security Bill passed has exposed its hypocrisy With the budget session of Parliament coming to an early close amid a political logjam, the food security Bill has been stalled again. The blame for this important legislation not winning parliamentary passage in the last four years rests entirely on the Manmohan Singh government, despite its last-minute posturing. The Bill, which was cleared...

-PTI Pingali has been appointed director of the Tata-Cornell Initiative in Agriculture and Nutrition Washington: Former World Bank economist Prabhu Pingali has been appointed by the Cornell University to lead effort to help reduce poverty and malnutrition in India, a project established through a USD 25 million endowment from the Tata Trusts. Pingali has been appointed director of the Tata-Cornell Initiative in Agriculture and Nutrition (TACO-AN), a long-term project established through a...

-The Economic Times The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has said the government fixed the minimum support price of food grain crops in a skewed manner and also faulted it for following inadequate norms on buffer food grains to meet contingencies during the audit period of 2006-07 and 2011-12. In a report titled 'Storage Management and Movement of Food Grains in Food Corporation of India', tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, the CAG...