-The Hindu CHENNAI: There will be no change in the government’s policy of universal public distribution system. Shedding its three-year-long reservations over the National Food Security Act (NFSA), the Tamil Nadu government on Thursday announced that it would implement the Act, effective November 1. There will be no change in the government’s policy of universal public distribution system. Also, the scheme of free distribution of rice to about 1.92 crore rice-drawing family (ration) cards...

-Frontline.in In the latest Global Hunger Index, India is bracketed in the category of countries where hunger levels are “serious”. But the policy responses on hunger and malnutrition in the country have been inadequate and faulty. In the second week of October, a few media reports in India highlighted significant data pertaining to global hunger. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) had released its Global Hunger Index (GHI), rating 118...

-The Indian Express The Rajasthan government has said the state’s record has been exemplary in making the transition from the older ration card-based system to using Aadhaar. Jaipur: Food security activists and economists have expressed concern at the exclusion of thousands of PDS beneficiaries in Rajasthan owing to glitches in the Aadhaar enabled electronic Point of Sale (ePoS) device. The Aadhaar enabled ePoS is dealing a double blow to the state’s public distribution...

-Business Standard Fingerprint failure reports of existing Aadhaar-linked PDS cases not revealed The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has decided to complete the linking the bank accounts to Aadhaar numbers of all the beneficiaries of large social schemes, including the National Food Security Act, by March 2017. Once done, the delivery of these schemes would be based on biometric authentication linked to Aadhaar or direct cash transfers to linked bank accounts of...

-The Indian Express PDS has improved in the state, but it’s still not up to the mark. Recent media reports suggest that the public distribution system (PDS) in West Bengal is now “doing enormously well” — as one headline put it. Some also claim that this has contributed to the victory of the Trinamool Congress in the latest assembly elections. Since we were involved in the survey cited in these reports, we...