Accountability Initiative, Centre for Policy Research Budget 2023-24 will be unveiled on February 1. As part of laying the context this brief, prepared by the Accountability Initiative, examines the allocation and expenditure trends for India's food subsidy.    At the start of the current Financial Year (FY) 2022-23, Government of India allocations for Food Subsidy stood at Rs. 2,06,831 crore, which was 28 percent lower than the previous year's Revised Estimates (REs)....

- Scroll.in The right to work has been suspended in the state as a result of a political battle over upcoming elections. People working under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in West Bengal have not been paid their wages for more than a year now with the Union government stopping the payment of funds. Bengal is the only state impacted by this stoppage, Scroll.in reports. MGNREGA is a national...

-Hindustan Times Indian fertiliser and chemical companies have also accelerated investments in several mineral rich North African nations so as to hedge against price spirals and volatility. New Delhi: India is on the verge of signing long-term deals with several countries to secure fertilizer imports, critical for food security amid increasing geopolitical uncertainties , a government official said, requesting anonymity. Union chemicals and fertilisers minister Mansukh Mandaviya is set to travel to Morocco...

-Scroll.in The sugar-coated termination of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana calls for an urgent expansion of alternative social security measures. Much confusion surrounds the Modi government’s recent move to modify the foodgrain entitlements of National Food security Act cardholders from January 1, 2023 onwards. The move actually has two steps, cleverly synchronised. The first step consists of waiving, for one year, the token payments that National Food security Act, or NFSA, cardholders...

The World Food and Agriculture – Statistical Yearbook 2022, released in December 2022, provides its readers a plethora of useful statistics and data across the countries pertaining to agriculture and food security. The yearbook by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) primarily covers four themes -- Economic Dimensions of Agriculture; Production, Trade and Prices of Commodities; Food security and Nutrition; and Sustainability and Environmental Aspects of Agriculture.  While going through the report,...