The National Food Security Bill has the potential to make a significant difference to the lives of the poor if properly implemented. However, the Bill in its present form has some easily correctible flaws that could cause huge problems in the future. A couple of simple amendments would greatly simplify the implementation and also allow innovation in the delivery of food subsidy. First, the proposed framework based on three categories of...

  MGNREGA, which entitles millions of workers enrolled under it to at least Rs 100 a day for 100 days of work in a year, is undergoing an overhaul based on a set of recommendations of a committee headed by the Planning Commission member Mihir Shah.   Encapsulated in The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act 2005 - Operational Guidelines 2012 in what is being called “MGNREGA 2.0”, the recommendations aim for...

After much debate, the Cabinet cleared the food security bill. Will it really ensure food for every Indian? THE Lokpal Bill debate may have ended in a fiasco but 2011 ended on a positive note for the Congress-led UPA government on another count. Its pet project, the National Food Security Bill (NFSB), was cleared by the Union Cabinet and introduced in Parliament. The bill seeks to address widespread hunger in the...

The government's ambitious economic census to create a comprehensive database of the economic profile of India's households and businesses has been pushed back again because of lack of personnel.  The census department is right now busy with the survey to enumerate people below poverty line and feels a simultaneous economic survey will stretch its resources undermining the data quality.  "There has been a decision taken to delay the economic census as conducting...

The data show that rural families simply cannot subsist on farm incomes alone There must be a bit of Gandhi in all of us because often our idea of India ultimately boils down to the kisan as the standard bearer of the lakhs of villages that comprise India. Perhaps that is why I tend to look for the signs of transformation in the lives of Indian farmers. The changes in...