Any change in the Public Distribution System (PDS) needs to be undertaken with extreme caution since it is likely to affect the food security of 50 percent of India's population. This has been stated by National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in a recent research brief. The note from NCAER is based on India Human Development Survey (2011-12) data. In the IHDS, nearly 42,000 households from 33 states and...

-Economic and Political Weekly   This article attempts to resolve the puzzle of public distribution system Leakages using the latest available data. Leakages remain high, but there is clear evidence of improvement in recent years, especially in states -- including Bihar -- that have undertaken bold PDS reforms. The main source of Leakages is the "above the poverty line" quota, which is due to be phased out under the National Food Security...

-The Telegraph Cuttack: Orissa High Court today directed the state government to constitute a high-level committee to check outbreak of jaundice in various parts of the state. The division bench of Justice Indrajit Mahanty and Justice S.C. Parija issued the direction on a PIL. Giribala Behera, councillor of ward No. 4 of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation, filed the petition seeking intervention for immediate measures to check spread of the outbreak in the...

-Business Standard The move will reduce demand for diverted PDS kerosene by improving availability of non-PDS kerosene in the open market The petroleum ministry on Tuesday announced that the government has freed regulatory control over storage, transportation and sale of kerosene sold outside of the public distribution system (PDS). To facilitate the move, aimed at increasing availability of white or market-priced kerosene, the government has amended the kerosene (restriction on use and fixation...

-The Indian Express ONE of the late R.K. Laxman's best cartoons from the mid-1960's portrays a smiling food minister looking out of a window at a heavy monsoon downpour saying, "This year we can tell the Americans to go to hell." Fifty years ago, a good monsoon meant that that year, India was not dependent on food aid and wouldn't have to go hat in hand to the Americans for food...