-The Telegraph Around 30 economists, including former NAC member Jean Dreze, today urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to do away with categorisation of beneficiaries under the proposed national food security bill. Dreze, who was part of the Sonia Gandhi-headed council, and the others have written to Singh saying the bill has “serious shortcomings” that needed to be removed. The bill, pending in Parliament, provides for subsidised grain for up to 75 per cent...

-The Economic Times Small and marginal farmers who constitute more than 80% of total farmer households in the country face exclusion from formal financial channels," says the Nair Committee on priority sector lending. The same report says "commercial banks have been prescribed targets since late 1960s for priority sector lending".  The banking system failed the farmers and the needy despite nationalisation, but is there a viable model that could help the millions...

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has once again cold-shouldered the Centre’s overtures to win the Trinamool Congress’ support for the National Food Security Bill. Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, K V Thomas, visited Kolkata on Friday, but returned without meeting Banerjee. Though Thomas’ office had written to Banerjee to propose the meeting to allay concerns of the Bengal government over the bill, it...

India’s decision-makers seem to find it difficult to see that there are children in the country. Being unable to see them, they are unable to perceive that they are hungry. In an age when we are able to use euphemisms like ‘under-nutrition’, this is perhaps not surprising. But it is disgraceful none the less.   This country has a large population of children. Fortyone per cent of its total numbers. The national...

Rural development minister Jairam Ramesh wants to sidestep categories proposed under the food security law to make sure that the welfare impact of the legislation isn’t nullified because a count that’s central to it hasn’t been completed across large parts of the nation. Ramesh wants 25kg of foodgrain given every month to 75% of the rural poor and 50% of the urban poor at subsidized rates. The National Food Security Bill, which...