The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme has been conceived as a major intervention by the Central government to deal with the high rates of infant mortality, low birth weight, and malnutrition among women and children. The scheme essentially targets children in the age group of zero to six years and women in the reproductive age group. The problem is that the ICDS is seen as the success story behind...

The government’s effort to draft a seminal law to fight hunger is flawed, inadequate, opaque and “not in the spirit of the election promises” in the Congress manifesto, says a confidential note circulated to top ministers at a late-evening meeting on Monday. The three-page note—a copy of which is with the Hindustan Times—came from the office of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee and was handed to the select empowered group of ministers...

The government has sought more time to work on the food security bill after Congress chief Sonia Gandhi insisted on a comprehensive legislation to tackle the problem of hunger among India’s poor. An empowered group of ministers had cleared the draft bill last month but reviewed it tonight at Sonia’s insistence and sought more time for deeper study. After the 90-minute meeting of the group, food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar...

The draft food security legislation readied for cabinet’s approval is much narrower in scope than what was initially envisaged and, hence, stops short of assuring an entitlement as had been previously pledged. The final draft Bill which has been approved by the empowered group of ministers (eGoM) and reviewed by Mint restricts coverage only to poor citizens, confines it to the supply of 25kg of wheat and rice, does not lock...

The well-intentioned food security Bill, cleared by the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) and now awaiting Cabinet approval, continues to raise issues that have not been fully resolved. Apart from the fact that it falls short of the Congress party’s election promise of guaranteeing nutritional security for the poor, it is still not clear how the government intends to mobilise the food stocks required to implement such a Bill across...