Is the Planning Commission too singularly focused on reducing food subsidy and intending to dissuade people from buying subsidized food rations even as the government spends thousands of crores to store excess grains in its stocks? Is it being penny wise but pound foolish? An internal note of the Plan panel suggests so. A note prepared by the panel reveals some startling information. On April 1, 2010 -- normally the...

One of the first issues the reconstituted National Advisory Council (NAC) will have to deal with is the proposed National Food Security Act (NFSA). Given the inability of the government to control food prices that remain unacceptably high and the scant regard the ruling United Progressive Alliance has shown for food security, it should be taken up on an urgent basis if the government is to preserve its credibility among...

While India’s new Right to Education Act seeks to bring free and compulsory education for all children, it seems to short-change them through an unrealistic vision of the private sector’s involvement. In August 2009, the Right to Education Act was passed in the Indian Parliament with no debate, by the fewer than 60 members who happened to be attending the session that day. Not that the Act was an open-and-shut...

After heading for eradication in the 1950s and 1960s, malaria has had a resurgence in India. Now a study that has just been published suggests that the most dangerous form of the disease could be at levels much higher than previously estimated. In 1953 when a national eradication programme was launched, some 75 million malaria cases and eight lakh deaths were estimated to be occurring in India which then had a...

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today said the decision on free power to the farm sector will be discussed in the cabinet but rejected the Planning Commission's contention that it was responsible for the alarming depletion of groundwater in the state. "The farmers of Punjab have been using ground water for the crops and the state has helped whole country to overcome food crises many times," Badal said, reacting to...