-Grist Media The proposed Food Security Bill will likely raise the demand for dal across India. While farmers and consumers are against it, the government keeps favouring the agri-industry and importing more and more cheap versions to offset rising inflation. But why won't India produce its own dal anymore? Nowhere are Canada's agricultural production plans tracked more closely than in India's Ministry of Food & Consumer Affairs. As it struggles to meet...
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Food security law that puts women and children last -Shailey Hingorani and Allison Hutchings
-The Hindu The National Food Security Ordinance, which President Pranab Mukherjee signed into law last week, has been touted as especially attentive to the needs of women and children. A closer inspection of the Ordinance, however, suggests otherwise - its provisions in fact ignore the distinct socio-economic roles of women and children in society. Moreover, the Ordinance glosses over entire subsets of women and children, including those who are arguably the...
More »India's food security bill: an inadequate remedy?-Ravi S Jha
-The Guardian A landmark bill to make the right to food a legal entitlement is mired in controversy over its failure to address a flawed public food distribution system, misplaced priorities and exclusions India has an over abundance of food grains stocked in warehouses, yet millions of India's poor are left without food. Development practitioners and NGOs are in favour of disbanding the current food security system, the public distribution system (PDS),...
More »Malnutrition related death toll in Attapadi touches 54 -Laxmi Ajai Prasanna
-The Times of India THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As the death toll touches 54 in Attapadi, a tribal hamlet in Palakkad, with one more infant succumbing to malnutrition on Saturday, advisor to the Prime Minister, TKA Nair, along with Kudumbasree officials who are on a two-day visit to Attappadi are set to issue a set of recommendations to revive the area. "There is no dearth of funds, yet the condition of the women and children...
More »India’s dysfunctional public health system
-Live Mint The country is a happy hunting ground for communicable diseases In a Mint article last week, economist Dean Spears pointed out that the double whammy of high population density and unsanitary conditions in India stunts the growth of children, who bear a disproportionate burden of infectious diseases and lose their ability to absorb nutrients. Unless India ramps up its public health system, providing extra food will mean little for...
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