-Deccan Herald India’s proposed National Food Security Bill can become a benchmark for many countries to follow, said UK-based Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and Oxfam India at a conference in Delhi on Tuesday. The Bill was introduced in Parliament in December 2011 and was referred to a standing committee. Legal entitlement It aims to provide legal entitlement of subsidised foodgrains to the poor, and is likely to cover nearly 70 per cent...
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CPI (M) to campaign for universalised PDS
-The Hindu The State Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has called for a sustained month-long campaign across West Bengal in August to highlight its demand for the incorporation in the Centre’s proposed Food Security Bill provision for a universalised public distribution system that ensures a monthly allocation of at least 35 kg of foodgrains per family at the rate of Rs. 2 per kg. Demands like remunerative prices to...
More »PM's speech at the release of the MGNREGA Sameeksha
-Press Information Bureau I am very happy to release the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA Sameeksha, brought out by the Ministry of Rural Development. This is an innovative way of looking at our development programmes. I compliment Shri Jairam Ramesh for taking the initiative to reach out to scholars in different parts of our country to apply their minds to analysis of what is being achieved, what is possible, what is not yet...
More »Unfair Tax: Mandi tax on grain procurement offers some states a double privilege
-The Economic Times State levies on grain purchase by the Food Corporation of India (FCI) will reportedly push up the Centre's food subsidy bill by Rs 10,000 crore this fiscal year. This is absurd and untenable. High taxes and commissions - 14.5% in Punjab and 10.5% in Haryana - on the minimum support price (MSP) of grain jack up the costs of procurement, drive private trade out of these markets, and set...
More »Fallacious perceptions of development–a tribal view from Jharkhand-Richard Toppo
-Kafila.org Almost a century ago, Katherine Mayo published a book titled ‘Mother India’ that criticized the Indian way of living, and Rudyard Kipling spoke of the ‘White Man’s Burden’. These writings reflected the colonial perspective that what colonizers did was in the best interest of the colonized people. Consequently, most well-meaning citizens of colonial powers were alienated from the horrible plight of the colonized. Purpose well served – unopposed exploitation. Years later,...
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