-Down to Earth Area under cultivation of millets is declining in spite of national Food Security Mission While the Union government plans to restructure the Food Corporation of India (FCI), agriculture scientists and nutrition experts are recommending that effective millet management should be included in the Public Distribution System (PDS) of the country. The step is important to achieve the food and nutrition security for the small and marginal tribal farming communities,...

-Outlook More government took Himachal near the top of development indices In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections, the buzz around the so-called ‘Gujarat model' was such that without really knowing what it stood for, everyone wanted it. ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance' is as close as one could get in terms of concrete proposals. However, when one looks at the achievements of Gujarat, the buzz turns to a whimper (see...

-Live Mint The eight-member committee, headed by former food minister Shanta Kumar, will submit its report in three months New Delhi: India's ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution on Wednesday created a committee to recommend ways to restructure Food Corporation of India (FCI), which it says is plagued by functional and cost inefficiencies. The eight-member committee will be chaired by Shanta Kumar, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member of Parliament from...

-The Guardian India cannot support an agreement that ignores food security when millions of its people go to bed hungry each night There is a view on global trade negotiations that has been propagated by a spate of commentaries and news analysis over the past few months. It runs broadly as follows: the multilateral trade regime had been limping to a slow death because of the failure of the Doha development round...

-The Economic Times None of the standard explanations quite explain the rise in food prices India has seen: pronounced since 2006 and alarming after 2010. Drought and poor rains? The country has seen good aggregate rainfall in most of those years. Spike in global prices? Those were high in 2007-08, not now. Fragmented value chains that allow middlemen to grab large margins? The value chain has always been fragmented. Growth has slowed...