A day after the Prime Minister urged a quick start to a national food security network, it has emerged that his government may let foodgrain —enough to feed 140 million poor people for a month—decay, instead of spending money and effort distributing it to the poor. Warning of an “emergency situation”, a person familiar with the situation told the Hindustan Times that 17.8 million tonnes of wheat and rice are being...
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Lessons from America & beyond by Biraj Patnaik
The National Advisory Council, led by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, has come up with the muchawaited contours of the National Food Security Act. The NFSA, it is hoped, will become India’s flagship programme for tackling hunger and malnutrition, equal in scale and vision to the ambitious and highly successful Fome Zero Programme launched by President Lula Da Silva in Brazil. The UPA government is also hoping that the NFSA will...
More »Pre-requisites for sustainable food security by MS Swaminathan
The goal of food for all can be achieved only through greater and integrated attention to production, procurement, preservation and public distribution. The President, in her address to Parliament on June 4, 2009, announced: “My Government proposes to enact a new law — the National Food Security Act — that will provide a statutory basis for a framework which assures food security for all. Every family below the poverty line in...
More »The new shifting agriculture: Shopping for fields overseas by Biraj Patnaik
In the wake of runaway inflation and the ensuing food crisis, the prime minister constituted three high-powered committees of chief ministers and central ministers to recommend ways of containing inflation, improving PDS and boosting agricultural production. The Working Group on agricultural production was chaired by Haryana chief minister B S Hooda, with CMs of West Bengal, Punjab and Bihar as members. Tucked away, largely unnoticed by the Indian media, as...
More »Why you must read this censored chapter by Raman Kirpal
A RESEARCHER WORKING on the State of Panchayats Report (SOPR) 2008-09 met Mahangu Madiya in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district, a dangerous place for gathering data. Madiya’s story was startling. In January, he was given Rs 55 lakh compensation for his land, but the amount is sitting in his bank account. He does not even own a mobile phone. “I am concerned with farming. My land is important to me. What will I...
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