-The Business Standard Govt's unbalanced food policy has disastrous results Consider the following discrepancies in the farm sector. The country is now the world’s largest exporter of rice, a crop grown with huge quantities of scarce water and heavily subsidised fertilisers. At the same time, it is the leading importer of pulses, which require very little water to grow and fortify the land with nitrogen to reduce the fertiliser need even...

-One World South Asia South Asia’s households fall into poverty as the result of higher food prices as food prices increase. According to the latest Food Price Watch, global food prices increased 10% between June and July 2012 with staples such as wheat increasing 25% in the period. The crisis continued affecting food and nutrition security throughout South Asia. Bad weather, trade curbs, oil prices and bio-fuel diversions have all led to...

-The Hindustan Times India's food problem is bifocal. A fast growing democracy cannot continue to live with any more deaths due to hunger and malnutrition. Simultaneously, it has to resolve the problem of meeting the rapidly rising food needs of a growing economy or what is called food inflation, basically an inability to grow and deliver food adequately and efficiently to meet the rising and diversifying demand. Indians are good demand modelers....

-Mainstream Weekly Intense and motivated propaganda, powerful national and international diplomatic pressure, verging on pure and simple arms-twisting of the kind the Third World has been facing for decades by means of the active role of the econo-mic hit-men in the policy establishments, huge cash-back lobbying, both in India and abroad, blunt attempts to bamboozle the persons holding key positions in India’s policy establishment through a combination of hissing and kissing...

-The Hindu The government’s claim that it will dampen inflation, bring higher prices for farmers and lower prices for customers may be somewhat exaggerated With the intention of signalling a strong commitment to reforms, the UPA government has announced a hike in the price of diesel and liberalisation of foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, justifying the measures as growth-enhancing and inflation-dampening. They have been termed bold by India’s corporate sector...