-Newsclick.in The government appears to be blithely indifferent to the devastation caused by its food grain mismanagement. The latest available data shows that the allocation of wheat for distribution through the Public Distribution System (PDS)— the ration system as it is known—has fallen dramatically this year. This has naturally led to a drop in offtake, that is, the distribution to needy families. Till October 2022, 115 lakh tonnes of wheat was allocated from...
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Supreme Court asks Centre what steps it has taken to ensure every migrant labourer gets food -Kanu Sarda
-India Today ‘It is the duty of the Central government to ensure food grains under the NFSA reach the last man. We are not saying that the Centre is not doing anything,’ the bench said. The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Centre to clarify what steps it had taken so far to ensure that every migrant labourer in this country gets food. A bench led by Justice MR Shah told Additional Solicitor...
More »Weighing in on PMGKAY, the free grains scheme -T Ramakrishnan
-The Hindu The Government may have its reasons in extending, once again, the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana scheme, but it cannot delay the commissioning of a study that should help stop the diversion of foodgrains and identify the food needy The extension of the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY), a scheme to distribute free foodgrains to the poor, for another three months, comes as a surprise for many...
More »Punjab, Haryana can hedge India against climate-induced food shortages. See data - Siraj Hussain and Shweta Saini
-ThePrint.in The two states earned a lot of flak during the farmers’ agitation for demanding continuation of the existing system of APMCs and MSP operations. The global events of the last one year, especially during the Russia-Ukraine war, have again shown the importance of food security to the world. It is critical for India too as it has to provide food to a large population of about 1.39 billion people. Punjab and...
More »Reforming the PDS for better nutrition -Surabhi Mittal
-Hindustan Times India ranked 107th out of 121 assessed countries on the 2022 Global Hunger Index (GHI). Although there are some measurement issues in the GHI, the report says there is high malnutrition in India due to rice-wheat biased policies. Malnutrition in India manifests itself in terms of triple burden – underweight especially among poor, hidden hunger (deficiency in micronutrients), and overweight. The National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA) was introduced to...
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