-The Indian Express   Roughly three decades after Tamil Nadu devised the mid-day meal scheme for schoolchildren, the Jayalalithaa government is working on extending it to breakfast as well. Like neighbouring Puducherry, the state will ensure that schoolchildren are provided a healthy start to the day. Some private and corporation schools have already experimented with the idea. Tamil Nadu’s welfare schemes have been remarkably efficient because of political determination, imaginative policy-making and implementation,...

The $12 billion Posco investment in India was supposed to be the biggest FDI project in the country. After six years that still remains on paper Horangineun jugeumyeon gajugeul namgigo, Sarameun jugeumyun ireumeul namginda (When tigers die, they leave behind leather. When people die, they leave their names behind) —Old Korean Proverb The news flash from Press Trust of India came on July 10, 2011. Posco, the $32 billion South Korean steel giant had decided to...

-The Business Standard   Food security cannot be ensured by FCI and the existing PDS Successive drafts of the food security Bill seem to agree on one thing: a greater role for the Food Corporation of India (FCI). FCI buys grains at the minimum support price and distributes them through fair price shops and other food-related schemes like midday meals in schools and children’s nutrition as part of the Integrated Child Development Services....

It was the end of a long, tiring and humid day. Sitting near the bamboo gate of his 'precious' betel vineyard, 70-year-old Narayan Mandal said despondently, "I don't want to migrate, once again." Mandal, a resident of Gobindpur village in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district, is one of the many opposing the state government's ambitious $12 billion Posco steel project. For the last six years, three gram panchayats - Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gada...

Less than a week after India announced a record harvest, Hindustan Times has learnt that the nation’s main grain-buying agency is running out of money for its massive nationwide purchase operation. Over the last month, the state-run Food Corporation of India (FCI) has twice stopped payments to state governments, various grain-purchasing agencies and rice millers who buy wheat and rice, the main food crops, from millions of farmers, a senior...