-The Financial Express Leading economists who fear that the cost of the food security law on the exchequer would be much higher than estimated by the government have a seemingly unlikely ally - farmers' groups. A couple of national-level farmers' organisations have opposed the National Food Security Bill, saying it would "lead to nationalisation of agriculture by making the government the biggest buyer, hoarder and seller of foodgrains". Farmers' representatives from a...

-The Hindu The Union Cabinet on Tuesday cleared the National Food Security Bill that gives legal entitlement to 67 per cent population (including 75 per cent rural and 50 per cent urban) for subsidised grains under the Targeted Public Distribution System The Union Cabinet on Tuesday cleared the National Food Security Bill that gives legal entitlement to 67 per cent population (including 75 per cent rural and 50 per cent urban) for subsidised...

-The Indian Express In all its versions, the food security bill places an unbearable fiscal burden, further distorts agriculture The design of policy in the revised version of the food security law proposed by the food ministry — cabinet approval for which was deferred on Monday — will make a bad idea worse. It is even less concerned about the imperatives of fiscal sustainability and the needs of the Indian population. Providing...

-The Indian Express The annual subsidy bill for the UPA’s proposed food guarantee law has been estimated at Rs 1,24,747.1 crore, 38.6 per cent over the budgeted food subsidy of Rs 90,000 crore for next year. An alarmed finance ministry is learnt to have red-flagged some major changes proposed in the original National Food Security Bill, sources said. It has objected to the proposal to do away with the original categorisation of beneficiaries...

-The Hindustan Times Enacted in 1958 to deal with the Naga uprising in the then composite state of Assam, the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) was reviewed by the Justice BP Jeevan Reddy Committee in 2005, which recommended that it be scrapped.   The Reddy report remains untabled in Parliament, despite the recent outcry, triggered by the Justice Verma Committee’s view that the Act needs to be reviewed (in the light...