The Supreme Court tells the government: "It's criminal to let food rot in a chronically hungry country. Give it away free to the poor." It could have added: "Have you no political sense? Have you not read Anandamath, or at least seen the movie?" And Manmohan Singh ticks it off for transgressing on policymaking — doesn't it know there's no such thing as a free lunch? He could have added:...
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Indian States Use Technology to Build Accountability
When noted economist Jean Dreze visited Surguja in Chhattisgarh a decade ago, its utterly non-functional Public Distribution System (PDS) looked like especially “designed to fail.” The National Advisory Committee member has written in a recent article that the ration shop owners illegally sold the grain meant for the poor and “hunger haunted the land.” But that was then. The economist was pleasantly shocked to see the transformation this time. “Ten years...
More »Unwelcome surprise by Jayati Ghosh
In pushing for a greatly truncated PDS, the food security bill proposed by the NAC, which has many right-to-food activists, undermines the PDS itself. ENSURING food security was the big promise of United Progressive Alliance-2. The promise to enact legislation to ensure a minimum quantity of affordable food to all poor households in the country was part of the election manifesto of the Congress party that leads the government. The 100-day...
More »SC shouldn’t go into policymaking: Singh by Ashis Chakrabarti and Samanwaya Rautray
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the Supreme Court should not go “into the realm of policymaking”. This was his response at an interaction with newspaper editors here to the recent order by the apex court that the government give food free to the poor. The court’s directive had caused the government some embarrassment but it had been uncertain whether the Centre would legally challenge it. While appearing to be unwilling to...
More »Five heady years of MGNREGA- Himanshu
Sunday will mark the fifth anniversary of the landmark National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (later rechristened the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, or MGNREGA). At a time when the country is debating the contours of similar landmark legislation for food security (the National Food Security Act), it is time to evaluate the working of MGNREGA, initially implemented in 200 of the country’s poorest districts and expanded to all...
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