-PTI He was addressing the consultation meet of state food ministers on Food Bill here. With Centre planning to present Food Bill in  the Budget session of Parliament, Food Minister K V Thomas today urged states to evolve a consensus on contentious issues like coverage and identification of beneficiaries. The Food Bill, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha in December 2011, aims to give legal right over Subsidised foodgrains to two-third of...

-Business Today What does the proposed food security law mean for the government's finances? Most days, around half a dozen middleaged men in Tamil Nadu's Nemam village head for a slushy pond. They are farm labourers who have had little work for the past few months because of a drought in their Tiruvarur district. As an alternative they catch fish, but the income from it is not enough to survive on. "But...

-Kafila.org This statement was put out by the RIGHT TO FOOD CAMPAIGN on 24 January The much awaited recommendations of the Standing Committee on Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution on the National Food Security Bill are a letdown to those who wrote to the Committee urging it to ensure justice to the people of India.  The Committee despite taking a year since December 2011 when the Bill was tabled in the...

A report by a parliamentary standing committee entrusted to examine the National Food Security Bill, 2011 has revived the debate on what measures India must take to end its abysmal track record of hunger and malnutrition, (See several links given below) despite successive years of high growth and record grain procurement. The draft legislation is likely to be debated in the upcoming session of Parliament, even as the recent Jaipur...

-The Business Standard Reetika Khera Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi* “Aadhaar is being made de facto compulsory for welfare schemes. With two-thirds without Aadhaar, they are bound to be denied entitlements” There are three components of the government’s direct benefit transfer scheme — computerisation, extending banking services and linking the benefits with Aadhaar. The real game-changers are the first two, whereas Aadhaar-enabled transfers carry the risk of excluding current beneficiaries. The Central government has...