The debate over food security is becoming an exercise in callow dissimulation, where we devote our energies to ensure that food security remains a mirage. The core objective should be simple. It is a scandal that after two decades of high growth, India still does not make adequate nutrition available to large sections of the population. There is simply no financial, technological or production related reason why this should be...

Senior United Nations officials today called for urgent steps to rein in the rising prices for basic farm produce, petroleum and raw industrial materials whose volatility hits the world’s poorest people the hardest.     “Such volatility has huge negative impacts on vulnerable groups, such as low-income households in developing countries, for whom food expenditure can account for up to 80 per cent of household budgets,” UN Conference on Trade and Development...

Prices across the three segments food, industrial goods and oil that determine Inflation rising, the year-end Inflation targets have been revised. The government had earlier estimated end-March Inflation at 6% but RBI now has raised it to 7%. The Food and Agriculture Organisation has raised an alert over a potential spike in global prices of sugar and cereals, especially wheat. Though India might just get away thanks to a bumper output...

Inflation has made the fight against malnutrition harder. In a country where 46% of the country's children below three years are underweight and Inflation has spiralled to above 15%, a meagre allocation of Rs 4 per day to feed a child is a mockery of the food programme. Small wonder then that states have demanded an increase in allocation and linking the government's Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) with consumer...

Between the Reserve Bank of India, the Union finance ministry and the army of economic advisors that surround Prime Minister Manmohan Singh no one seems to have a clue about how to get a grip over food Inflation. Not only has the recent episode of high food prices seen surprisingly sharp spikes in the prices of vegetables and fruit but it has lasted longer than any other episode of Inflation...