The SC on Friday wanted to know Centre’s response to a petitioner’s allegation that over 7 crore below poverty line (BPL) families have been left out of the ambit of the public distribution system (PDS) and deprived of Subsidised foodgrains. A Bench comprising Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma asked Attorney General G E Vahanvati, who was busy in another court, to respond to this charge by November 11. Petitioner NGO...

Terming the recommendations of the National Advisory Council on the proposed Food Security Bill as discouraging, senior leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Sitaram Yechury on Friday underlined the need for a people's movement to pressure the Manmohan Singh government to go in for a universal public distribution system to ensure food security in the country. Addressing a seminar on food security at the CPI(M) State headquarters here, Mr....

The National Advisory Council (NAC), which recently approved subsidised food for 75 per cent of population, has entrusted the task of drafting the Food Security Bill with a Working Group on food security for the consideration of the Council meeting, slated for November 26. The NAC working committee, while finalising the details of the Bill, will also look into proposals for introducing some reforms in the PDS system to efficiently carry...

In its final recommendations on the proposed Food Security Act, the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council finally has acknowledged the twin constraints of the budget and the availability of foodgrains by stopping short of “universalisation” of a government-guaranteed right to subsidised food. Given the NAC’s composition and remit, its recommendation is likely to influence the final draft. The NAC still leans in favour of spreading the targeting net too wide, and...

The National Advisory Council (NAC), headed by Sonia Gandhi, on Saturday recommended to the government to grant differential legal entitlement of foodgrains to nearly 800 million people through a reformed PDS network from the next financial year. The NAC also decided to set aside the BPL criteria and suggested two broad categories — priority and general — eligible for legal foodgrain entitlement under the proposed food security law. As per the recommendations,...