The new bribery revelations, a rigged process to import reactors and safety-related concerns must lead to the long-blocked scrutiny of the nuclear deal by Parliament. The world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl raises troubling questions about India's plans for a huge expansion of its nuclear power programme through reactor imports. Given its low per-capita energy consumption, India must generate far more electricity to economically advance. So it needs more nuclear-generated power....

With buffer stocks ahead of harvest being twice the norm, limiting wheat procurement in the coming season is a judicious option. It is time for a thorough overhaul of the foodgrains procurement and buffer stocking policy. With the rabi season harvest of grains — mainly wheat, followed by paddy — just days away, a major challenge will be finding appropriate storage space. As of March 1, the Food Corporation of India...

It is time for the National Advisory Council (NAC) to introspect whether its pious thoughts on food security square up to an economic reality check. There are three likely scenarios: (1) universal coverage at 35 kg/per month per family; (2) universal coverage with 25 kg per family per month; and (3) partial coverage (say, to 11 crore families) with 35 kg per family per month. In each case, the implications...

Forty years ago Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan helped rescue the world from growing famine and a deepening gloom over the future of food supplies. Today, public policy projects itself as pro-farmer but it does it half-heartedly, complains Swaminathan. M S Swaminathan, member of the National Advisory Council and father of the Green Revolution says the government's allocation for agriculture is insignificant. Doesn't the Union Budget reflect a new focus on agriculture?...

A section of Congress is set to back the demand of chief ministers of BJP and other Opposition-ruled states to reject the Seeds Bill, 2010, in its present form. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, spearheading the campaign against the bill, has told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar that the bill, whose avowed purpose is to facilitate production and supply of seeds of quality, will put the peasantry...