Food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar is being praised in some quarters for daring to take a politically incorrect position. In a sharp disagreement with the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council's (NAC) proposal to supply subsidised food to 75% of the population, Pawar has pointed out two flaws in the proposal: first, that it is unaffordable and second that it is near impossible to procure and store the required food...

The Food Corporation of India (FCI) should feel relieved that the private sector has stepped in to create additional foodgrain storage capacity, bridging the extant gap. However, it is difficult to fathom why much of the new warehousing capacity is sought to be put in place in grain-surplus states (production centres) — notably Punjab and Haryana, besides some others like Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra — rather than in...

At least 29 of the 66 migrants crushed to death in east Delhi when a building collapsed on Monday night hailed from Bengal. The figure signposts the exodus of an abandoned generation and the inability of a state to retain its young or equip them for a better life elsewhere. The death of so many Bengalis has brought out in the open troubling issues that policymakers — both in the state...

It is two weeks now that the state cotton federation has launched procurement but not a single farmer has turned up to sell cotton at its collection centres because of the huge gap between minimum support price and the open market rates. But private traders are now being accused of cartelising in order to pull down prices as it has become a buyers` market. Nearly half a dozen incidents of clashes...

Special healthcare awaits children of Jharkhand. Under National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), a check-up drive for students of state-run government schools will be launched from Thursday with the hope of reaching out to about 45 lakh children aged between five and 10. According to Aradhana Patnaik, state director, NRHM, the children will be issued health cards giving them access to regular check-ups every six months and free medical treatment depending on their...