Giving right to food is not enough to deliver food, say speakers at a conference on food security Agriculture scientist M S Swaminathan has called for setting up a body headed by the prime minister for effective execution of the National Food Security Bill (NFSB) once it is enacted. All chief ministers should be members of this board, he added. NFSB was cleared by the Union Cabinet and introduced in Parliament in...

The district administration's plan of giving priorities to digging of wells under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) has started bearing fruits. The scheme has brought smiles to hundreds of farmers across the district. Official records show that the farmers have doubled their income by growing crops in about 7,200 acres in all seasons. Many farmers like Mahli Oraon at Rampur village of Sadar block shared their success...

-The Hindu The government has constituted one more expert group to re-examine the methodology for fixing a poverty line and estimating the incidence of poverty in the country. Changes in average incomes and consumption patterns over time may require review and revision of the approach currently in use. However, the last such review of the methodology originally recommended by the Lakdawala committee (1993) was undertaken after more than a decade by...

-The Telegraph The government today set up an expert committee to suggest a new methodology for determining who is poor and who is not, following widespread condemnation of its existing criteria last year. However, the five-member committee headed by C. Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, will also examine the existing methodology, which was suggested by a previous expert panel formed under Suresh Tendulkar. Tendulkar’s methodology was solely based on...

In a Bangladeshi folk story, a disabled grandfather is carried by his son in a basket, to be abandoned in the forest. On seeing this, the grandson calls out, 'Father, please be sure to bring back the basket. I will need it when you grow old'. Three thousand ageing men and women gathered in Delhi in the blazing midsummer heat to demand a universal pension for all aged people, not...