Economists across the world are expressing concern about rising Food Prices. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization recently released its Food Price Index. The list showed that a number of foods cost more than during the world food crisis of two thousand eight. The index is at its highest level since it began in nineteen ninety. Demonstrations and deadly food riots have broken out this month, as they did in...

It was bad enough that the National Advisory Council in its recommendation of October 2010 proposed a food security Bill that diluted the principle of a universal right to food. It is appalling now that the C. Rangarajan Committee seeks to truncate that proposal, and legally establish a narrowly targeted public distribution system on the grounds of feasibility. Their argument is a false argument for more reasons than one. First,...

The government is seriously considering minority foreign stake in food retail in the wake of the spurt in Food Prices. “FDI in (food) retail will lead to demand-driven farming and that can result in clusterised high-growth farming,” food processing minister Subodh Kant Sahay told the The Telegraph. Cabinet secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar is believed to have gone even further — reportedly endorsing a proposal of the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP)...

The problem is all pervasive as the prices of almost all food items have been rising In a scenario that is all familiar in India and for that matter in many other countries too, rising Food Prices have become an extremely sensitive issue with major political and social ramifications that go well beyond the economic ones. Not that the economic consequences are unimportant. From the macroeconomic management point of view, rising food...

The Rangarajan committee further dilutes the proposals for the food security bill   The Rangarajan committee set up by the Prime Minister to examine the recommendations of the NAC on the food security bill has submitted its report. It is not surprising to see that it has argued against even the minimalist framework of the NAC saying that expanding the PDS is impossible due to procurement and fiscal constraints. Although the full...