The draft Food Security Bill makes it compulsory for state governments to pay a food security allowance to targeted sections in case of failure to supply foodgrain through a sweeping welfare scheme targeted at nearly three-fourths of the population. The amount will be decided by the central government. The draft bill also presses for a radical overhaul of the food distribution system by giving incentives to independent agencies that procure...

Cash transfers are now suggested by many as a silver bullet for addressing the problems that plague India’s anti-poverty programmes. This article argues instead for evidence-based policy and informed public debate to clarify the place, prospects and problems of cash transfers in India. By drawing on key empirical findings from academic and grey literature across the world an attempt is made to draw attention to three aspects of cash transfers...

-The Economic Times   As the government twiddles its thumbs on allowing export of surplus grains , wheat prices have plunged below not just the government's promised minimum support price but also the price of maize. This has prompted poultry feed manufacturers to substitute wheat for maize in their produce. So chicken will eat wheat this year. As prices stay depressed, farmers will switch from wheat to some other crop or just simply...

Renu Devi is scared. The Planning Commission’s new definition of poverty will eject her from the set of below-poverty-line households, and her family will lose the right to 25kg rice and wheat a month at Rs 5 per kilo. The plan panel has fixed a cut-off of Rs 675 and Rs 870 as the monthly per head expenditure, in rural and urban areas respectively, for a family to qualify as poor....

-The Business Standard   India's 68% population may get legal right to subsidised food if the draft National Food Security bill prepared by the Food Ministry is approved by a panel of ministers at the forthcoming meeting. After analysing the recommendations of the National Advisory Committee (NAC) and Rangarajan Committee, the Food Ministry has prepared a draft bill, likely to be placed before the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on food next...