A report from a sample survey of the functioning of the public distribution system in 12 villages in two districts in Orissa, a state usually associated with a poor PDS. While there are errors in exclusion and inclusion of households covered, there has been a vast improvement in operation of the PDS; below the poverty line households seem to be receiving their entitlements. The households also express a strong preference...

Anna Hazare's campaign may lead to a new Lokpal Bill, but it has legitimised middle-class vigilantism and other kinds of civil society mobilisation. NOW that Anna Hazare has declared victory, it is time to take stock of one of the most powerful recent mobilisations of people in India, focussed on influencing policy or lawmaking processes. The victory, however, is largely symbolic. The original demand of the movement, carefully built around Hazare's...

-The Business Standard   The government’s move to allow an additional 0.5 million tonnes of sugar exports on top of one million tonnes permitted earlier is well intended. However, the total permissible exports are still not enough to adequately slash unsustainable inventories and improve the economic health of the sugar industry so that it can clear the mounting cane price dues. Given the robust rebound in sugar production in the current season (October...

Jairam Ramesh's removal as Environment Minister creates uncertainties for domestic environment policy and the deadlocked global climate talks. WHATEVER one may think of its overall impact, the recent Cabinet reshuffle was not exactly a damp squib. Its single most important component was Jairam Ramesh's replacement as the Minister of State with independent charge in the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) by Jayanthi Natarajan, a relative political lightweight with very little...

-The Economic Times   The Supreme Court on Friday refused to ease its three-month old ban on the manufacture, sale and use of pesticide endosulfan despite an expert committee report favouring lifting the restrictions for all states except the worst-affected Kerala and Karnataka. However, a bench of Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justices K S Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar agreed to consider the industry's request for permission to export the...