The All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) has called upon Parliament to reject the National Food Security Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. In a statement issued on Friday, the association said the Bill was a “more dangerous and rehashed version” of the current Targeted Public Distribution System, that proved to be an “utter failure” in view of the manner in which it eroded the food security of the...

The uncertainty over the Lokpal Bill has overshadowed an equally significant National Food Security Bill, which was cleared by the Union Cabinet last week and is to be introduced in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. The Bill has been in the eye of the storm over targeted coverage of beneficiaries as against universalisation in view of the immense ramifications for the aam aadmi , struggling with rising food prices. In the second...

-The Hindu   Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Tuesday expressed her “strong opposition” to the draft Food Security Bill, 2011 and urged the Centre to exempt Tamil Nadu from the purview of the Bill. In her letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, she said the proposed Bill was replete with “confusion and inaccuracy.” The proposed classification of target groups into priority household (PHH) and general household (GHH) for delivery of food entitlements would surely invite...

-The Indian Express The Congress’s long-deferred promise, the food security bill, has been cleared by the cabinet and will now be debated and refined in Parliament. For all its formidable complexity, the draft bill is evasive on some of the fundamentals, like exactly who will be served by the subsidy. Though it has moved away from a narrowly targeted, tightly rationed approach and now intends to make cheap foodgrain readily available to...

-Express News Service In a major step towards fulfilling the ruling Congress’s poll promise, the Union Cabinet today cleared the National Food Security Bill that seeks to provide legal entitlement of foodgrain to 75 per cent of the rural population and up to 50 per cent of the urban population. The Bill seeks to divide the eligible households into two broad categories — priority and general — wherein the “priority” group will...