-Hindustan Times Universalise PDS, make it demand-driven; give more funds to states; and ramp up MGNREGS I pen this column with a depressing sense of deja vu. Back in late March as India went into lockdown, I wrote in these pages of the urgent need for the State to change the rules of the game, avoid red tape, improve Centre-state coordination and adapt agile administrative processes as it sought to provide relief...

-Financial Express Check nutritional vulnerability amongst poor children during the lockdown. In India, inequitable Distribution of resources is a major challenge that has impeded access to nutrition for a sizeable population and harmed the children the most. According to the National Family Health Survey, 2015-16, every second child, aged 0-5 years, from the poorest 20% households in India suffers from some form of undernutrition, i.e. stunting or underweight or wasting. However, the...

-The Hindu The resultant distress in India has exacerbated pre-existing structures of disadvantage based on social identity In his book, The Great Leveler, Walter Scheidel, the Austrian economic historian, argues that throughout human history, there have been four types of catastrophic events that have led to greater economic equality: pandemic, war, revolution and state collapse. Currently, the world is going through one of them: a massive COVID-19 pandemic. In Scheidel’s analysis, the...

-Press release by Right to Food Campaign, dated 11th August, 2020 Although One Nation One Ration Card has been projected as a solution to the food insecurity problems that mobile or floating populations face, there are some serious problems associated with the scheme, such as exclusion errors, etc. Instead of the ONOR scheme, the government should universalise the public Distribution system (PDS) and open community kitchens in urban areas. Please click here...

-Hindustan Times As per prevailing international prices, the expected subsidy on kerosene sold through the public Distribution system in the current financial year is zero. India is expected to save Rs.35,758 crore on kerosene and cooking gas subsidies this year, which is over 91% of the total budgeted fuel subsidy for 2020-21, mainly because of low international oil prices, according to two officials who asked not to be named. As per prevailing international...