-Governance Now Shanta Kumar committee recommendation to curtail PDS based on "motivated data fudging" A group of economists have challenged the government move to scale down the ambit of the food security initiative, arguing that leakages in the public distribution system (PDS) are not as bad as an official committee has concluded. A ‘high-level committee on restructuring of FCI', headed by Shanta Kumar, submitted its report to prime minister Narendra Modi last month,...
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Cash transfers can plug PDS leakages: study -Puja Mehra
-The Hindu A new study has estimated that 46.7 per cent or 25.9 million metric tonnes (MMTs) of the grains (rice and wheat), released through the PDS, did not reach the intended beneficiaries in 2011-12. In the study, based on the latest NSSO data, by Chair Professor for Agriculture at ICRIER and former Chairman, Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP), Ashok Gulati and Shweta Saini, Chhattisgarh was the best performing...
More »Food insecurity acts -Brinda Karat
-The Hindu The Shanta Kumar Committee's recommendations to unbundle the Food Corporation of India are in tune with U.S.-led demands raised in the World Trade Organization The Shanta Kumar Committee report, released last week, on a range of issues relating to procurement, storage and distribution of food grains is not only deeply flawed in its reading of the situation on food security, but also short on facts. It was prepared under the...
More »Education campaign yields dividends -Pheroze L Vincent
-The Hindu In 1951, a year after India became a republic, only 18.33 per cent of its 35.11 crore citizens could read. According to the 2011 census, 74.04 per cent of its 121.02 crore people can read. In 60 years, 83.12 crore Indians learnt to read. School enrolment is at an all-time high with several surveys putting primary enrolment at above 96 per cent. However, India is still below the world's average...
More »Govt data on inequality misleading
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Inequality in South Asia is much more glaring than what government data shows because standard yardsticks of measuring income don't reveal the true picture, says a World Bank report 'Addressing Inequality in South Asia', released on Tuesday. For instance, the Gini coefficient - the standard measure to gauge income inequality - ranges from 0.28 to 0.40 in this region, suggesting a level of inequality much lower...
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