-The Indian Express According to sources, the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED), which comes under administrative control of the Agriculture Ministry, has been tasked with ensuring supply of pulses from the buffer stocks it maintains. Announced as part of the COVID-19 relief package about a month ago, free pulses — 1 kg per family — to beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) are yet to reach...
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Hans Timmer, World Bank's Chief Economist for South Asia, interviewed by Suhasini Haidar (The Hindu)
-The Hindu Disruptions in the supply chain and panic buying can lead to price spikes: Hans Timmer In a report released this month, the World Bank has predicted a ‘dire’ situation for South Asia due to the economic impact of measures to counter the novel coronavirus pandemic, suggesting that the eight SAARC countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Maldives and Sri Lanka) will experience their worst economic performance in 40 years,...
More »‘More than 100mn excluded from PDS as govt uses outdated Census 2011 data’
-India Spend Team The public distribution system (PDS) is meant to play a key role in disbursing government support to the poorest Indians during the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. However, the system leaves more than 100 million people excluded from its reach, as per academics Jean Drèze, Reetika Khera and Meghana Mungikar, because the central government uses 2011 population figures from the last census to calculate state-wise PDS coverage. Under the National Food...
More »100 million Indians fall through gaps in food safety net, economists urge rethink on Covid-19 relief
-Scroll.in The Central government is using outdated population figures to determine grain allocations to states under the food security law. Millions of Indians live on the verge of hunger even in normal times. Now, with the coronavirus epidemic sweeping the world and India declaring a five week-long economic lockdown to contain it, hunger threatens an even larger population which has no income to buy food. As part of its economic central government has...
More »Rising food insecurity: Tackling hunger during the coronavirus crisis -Geetanjali Krishna
-Business Standard Food insecurity is on the rise as subsidised food distributed via govt-run ration shops is not easily available to everyone Napoleon once famously said that an army marches on its stomach. Many argue that the present countrywide lockdown is causing widespread poverty and consequent hunger, making it that much harder for the nation to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. In this context, the work of Dilli Rozi Roti Adhikar Abhiyan (DRRAA), Right...
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