-Outlook New Delhi: Food Minister K V Thomas today asked state governments to address three critical issues - identification of beneficiaries, creation of storage capacity and door-step delivery of foodgrains via PDS - for the successful implementation of the food security law. Addressing the state food ministers meet here, he called for greater coordination and cooperation between the centre and state governments to implement the law in 'true spirit'. The day-long meeting is...

-Down to Earth Claim by GlaxoSmithKline that makes the milk supplement harps only on one aspect of study, which incidentally is funded by another multinational-Nestle A Horlicks advertisement that harps on how milk loses nutrients upon boiling in order to promote the milk supplement does not appear to be based on independent research. It turns out that one of the studies cited by the makers of Horlicks has been funded by Nestle...

-The Financial Express In an article published in this newspaper on September 4, 2013, Surjit Bhalla takes us to task for critiquing his earlier estimates of the cost of the Food Security Bill. Bhalla asserted that subsidy expenditures would more than triple and the FSB would cost the government R3,14,000 crore annually or 3% of GDP. We argued that Bhalla was barking up the wrong tree and that the main things...

-The Hindu That one-third of the food produced annually for human consumption is wasted is in itself unconscionable in a world where 870 million, or one in eight people, go hungry every day. A United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation report now says that this high volume of wastage that occurs right through the food supply chain exerts an adverse impact on land, water, biodiversity and climate change. This impact...

-The Economic Times KOLKATA: In the wake of the just-enacted National Food Security Act, the Union Minister for Food and Public Distribution, Prof KV Thomas recently reviewed the operations of Food Corporation of India (FCI), especially from the point of view of its preparedness for implementing the law. Expressing satisfaction after the review, Prof. Thomas said the FCI had been undertaking various steps in the last one year towards increasing the storage...