The goal of food for all can be achieved only through greater and integrated attention to production, procurement, preservation and public distribution. The President, in her address to Parliament on June 4, 2009, announced: “My Government proposes to enact a new law — the National Food Security Act — that will provide a statutory basis for a framework which assures food security for all. Every family below the poverty line in...

Following a hike in the prices of petrol, diesel, gas, milk prices have also gone up. Between January 2007 and March 2010 the price of milk rose seven times in Delhi. The story is similar elsewhere in the nation too. In the last one year, prices increased from Rs 17 to Rs 22 a litre. In some cities, like Mumbai, the rise has been steeper. Earlier, it was pulses that were burning...

The government will enact a legislation to ensure subsidised wheat and rice to the poor, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said at a seminar titled Bringing Green Revolution to Eastern States. “We are committed to enacting a legislation on food security (called National Food Security Act). But to make it successful, we need to produce more, procure more and strengthen the delivery mechanism for making foodgrain accessible to the poor at affordable...

The recent spike in world food prices has further widened the gap between the developed and the developing economies. While, over 70 per cent of the world's population resides in poor countries, it has access to less than 40 per cent of the world's resources such as water, irrigated land, power, etc. This is a result of inconsistent economic progress (post-colonialisation birth pangs), rampant population growth and distractions such as...

SUKHRAM Gopal, a farmer from Bagli village in Devas district in Madhya Pradesh, relies on gut feel and tradition to be doubly sure that the rains will bless him with a bountiful harvest. On the day of the Gangaur festival, which typically falls in March-April and is a celebration of the monsoon and harvesting, Gopal starts sowing wheat. “Nine days later, if the seeds grow in a uniform manner, we...