-Reuters Raipur/Patna: The deaths of at least 23 children who were poisoned after eating a free school meal has triggered an outcry over food safety just as the ruling Congress party is set to launch an ambitious plan to feed 800 million poor, with an eye on elections due within a year. Congress leader Sonia Gandhi‘s national subsidised food project includes free school meals and expands existing handouts to make it probably...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: What happens when academic rivalry spills over into the political arena? A riveting contest ensues, if the one being played out in the run-up to the general elections along with the Narendra Modi-Nitish Kumar showdown is any indication. While the Jagdish Bhagwati-Arvind Panagariya combo - both professors of economics at Columbia University - are packing a fair punch, Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen is ducking and dodging,...

-Rediff.com While the Delhi and Haryana governments have declared that they are all set to roll-out the food security programme on August 20 -- Rajiv Gandhi's birth anniversary -- there is confusion among the chief ministers about the implementation of the ordinance which gives the right to people to receive adequate quantity of food grains at affordable prices. Anita Katyal reports. Although the ordinance has provided broad parameters that 75 per cent...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Saturday asked the states ruled by the party to implement in 'letter and spirit' the food security scheme which it sees as a 'game changer' in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. She held deliberations with Congress chief ministers on how to implement the food scheme seeking to provide cheap foodgrains to 82 crore people, for which an ordinance was promulgated last week. Party sources said...

-The Indian Express Trendsetters & tweakers Act one Chhattisgarh already has a food security law in place. It became last December the first state to pass a food security bill, which covers several sections not under existing schemes. The Act makes food entitlement a right and depriving anyone of that an offence. If PDS grains, for instance, are being diverted, the officials involved will face penal provisions. The Act also seeks to empower women...