The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) recently in New Delhi, India gathered more than 900 participants for an international conference to examine ways that agriculture can enhance the health and nutritional status of poor people in developing worlds. Scholars, Politicians and activists during the conference tried to exploit the nexus between agriculture, nutrition and health. Most people would say that agriculture is for growing food, and on one level, they are...

Budget 2011-12 and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. THREE decades ago, in the early years of the Special Component Plan (SCP) for Scheduled Castes – very recently renamed inappropriately as Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan (SCSP) – Indira Gandhi on her return as Prime Minister wrote two historical D.O. letters dated March 12, 1980, one to Central Ministers and the other to State Chief Ministers, regarding the SCP in the Central...

With an aim to introduce the much-awaited Food Security Bill in the monsoon session (July-August) of Parliament, the food ministry has started parleys to bridge the GAP between an expert panel appointed by the Prime Minister and the National Advisory Council (NAC). While it wants to ensure smooth supply of foodgrains to the target groups, the ministry, in an interaction with NAC on Wednesday, made it clear that it is equally...

A number of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including Greenpeace, on Wednesday lashed out at the Pranab Mukherjee-headed Group of Ministers (GoM) on coal mining for working in an “undemocratic manner” and sought greater transparency and openness in its functioning. “We are demanding that the process be opened up and made transparent. There has to be proper consultation with the stakeholders and issue experts,” Ashish Fernandes of Greenpeace India said in a statement...

Social priorities have received scant fiscal attention There is good reason to feel let down by this year’s budget for the advancement of social sectors. The disappointment is more given that the Union finance minister opened his speech by stating that “we are reaching the end of a remarkable fiscal year” and followed it up by immediate assertions that “growth in 2010-11 has been swift and broad-based”, that “the economy...