THE FLAGSHIP scheme of UPA II, the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA), has become a policymaker’s nightmare. If suggestions by the Finance Ministry (reportedly at the instance of Congress President Sonia Gandhi) and the state governments are incorporated, the yearly food grain requirement would be close to 80 million tonnes. But considering food grain procurement in an average year is 40 to 41 million tonnes — half the amount...

Days after several persons were hospitalised after exposure to radioactive waste at a West Delhi scrap market, it emerges that the only data available with the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) is almost three years old. And even that is alarming: 5,300 tonnes of hazardous waste was generated in the Capital every year, according to the survey last conducted in 2007. The state pollution control body has no information on...

The battle over genetically modified brinjal may resume shortly as an Environment Ministry agency readies its ammunition against arguments that the vegetable, the introduction of which has been halted by a government moratorium, threatens biodiversity and is unsafe for human consumption. The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) will be going up against environment minister Jairam Ramesh, who was responsible for the decision to suspend cultivation of Bt brinjal after the panel...

The proposed Food Security Bill should adopt a three-pronged strategy that constitutes a Universal Public Distribution System for all, low-cost foodgrains to the needy, and convergence in the delivery of nutrition safety net programmes.  In his latest budget speech, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced: “We are now ready with the draft Food Security Bill which will be placed in the public domain very soon.” Although no official draft has been...

Reports should be sent to all ‘climate sceptics' during the review process  Introduce the “Right to Information” to the U.N.'s climate change system, India has suggested to the body (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) charged with bringing credibility and accountability to the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), the climate science panel which has been in the eye of a storm over the last few months. India wants...