-IANS   The Delhi government's scheme replacing the Public Distribution System with cash transfers is a "total fraud" as the poor will not benefit from receiving a fixed sum when prices of essential items are rising, NGO Rozi Roti Adhikar said on Tuesday. The NGO kicked off a 20-day yatra across the capital to galvanise opinion against the government's decision. According to a statement, the yatra will move through various parts of...

The global 'farmland grab' in Ethiopia and the rest of Africa has become competitive, with companies from Asia, including India and China, joining it. AN extraordinary new process has been at work in the past few years: the aggressive entry of Indian corporations into the markets for agricultural land in Africa. At one level, this process is simply following the hoary old tradition in global capitalism of firms (often supported...

Long promised by the UPA government, the food security bill will be tabled in parliament in December this year. However, the National Advisory Council (NAC), which drafted the proposal, is tussling with the government over the “dilution and misdirection” of the Bill. The final Bill diverges from the original NAC draft on key issues: adoption of alternatives to the PDS such as cash transfers, the risk of inflation due to...

-The Economic Times   Food inflation climbed into double digits after a fivemonth gap, prompting finance minister Pranab Mukherjee to term the trend "disturbing". The wholesale index for food articles rose 10.1% for the week to August 18 from a year earlier on account of a sharp increase in prices of vegetables and cereals, data released on Thursday showed. The index was at 9.8% in the previous week. "This is really disturbing,"...

State links PDS to UID to plug leakages in food supplies but gaps remain Madhya Pradesh has opted for the technologically most sophisticated—and costliest—method for revamping its public distribution system (PDS). It is one of a handful of states that is trying to ensure that subsidised food reaches the segment it is meant for, the poorest of the population or those below the poverty line (BPL). But the route it has...