-The Indian Express There seems to be emerging a fair consensus across the political spectrum that it is not prudent to tamper with the ongoing process of land market reform that began a decade ago. The earlier "revenue laws" that governed the registration of titles came from a century-old colonial legislation. The imperial government of India kept almost complete control over land title and use - in order to dispense...

-The Indian Express Given indicators that the government is considering moving to cash transfers and replacing the public distribution system (PDS), and the release of the Shanta Kumar Committee report, the debate on how best to provide food security has been rekindled. The report has a careful analysis of the sources of inefficiency at various stages of the procurement, storage and distribution system. Especially heartening is the admission that the Food...

The India Country Report 2015 on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) comes at a time when the Union Budget 2015-16 allegedly cut expenditure on several social sector schemes and programmes. This year's MDG country report says that India will fail to achieve two important targets pertaining to reducing hunger and maternal mortality by 2015, among others. Released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the report says that India is...

-Business Standard States will now have to spend from their pockets to keep their social-sector schemes going The 2015-16 Budget seems to have broken the contract between the Centre and the states on sharing the economic burden for delivering social security. The Centre's assistance to the states for social sector schemes has come down from a budgeted Rs 3.56 lakh crore in FY15 to Rs 2.20 lakh crore in FY16. Effectively, while the...

-Business Standard Food ministry needlessly wary of reform The report of the Shanta Kumar committee on food management contains several cogent recommendations and these have been submitted to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO). But it is increasingly unlikely that the report will be accepted in full. In its comments on the report, the Union food ministry has either turned down or expressed reservations on the implementation of many of the reforms-oriented suggestions....