Exaggeration. Exaggeration. Exaggeration.  I was subjected to this tiresome litany from various angry officials and a couple of politicians after one of their colleagues — who will remained unnamed — leaked to me the perilous state of India’s granaries and the rotting foodgrain within. On July 26, I reported how 50,000 metric tonnes of wheat and rice had rotted away, unfit even for animals; how 17.8 million tonnes, enough to feed...

Television and print media have been awash with pictures of stacks of sacks of rotting foodgrain. And played in an almost infinite loop, these pictures become obviously powerful. They can become a call to urgent and revolutionary action. This perhaps accounts for the emotive appeal of the Supreme Court’s recent intervention on distributing this grain, and to keep procurement commensurate with available storage facilities. It does not, however, explain the...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday virtually ticked off the Supreme Court, saying that it "should not get into policy formation". The trigger for this rebuke was the apex court's anger at grains rotting in FCI and government godowns, and its direction to agriculture minister Sharad Pawar to distribute grains for free to families living below the poverty line. Talking to a group of editors on Monday morning, Singh said...

“Supreme Court should not go into realm of policy formulation” The government will do all it can to provide affordable food to those below the poverty line but cannot implement the Supreme Court's order to give free foodgrains to the poor, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday. In an interaction with a small group of editors at his residence — his first in several years — Dr. Singh handled questions on...

The Communist Party of India on Tuesday said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's remark about the Supreme Court on grain distribution was uncalled for and the court order has to be understood in the proper spirit. “It is not an issue of the Supreme Court exceeding its jurisdiction and transgressing into the domain of the executive. One has to understand the proper spirit and the language of the order,” the party's central...