With its politically crucial food security agenda facing time-consuming scrutiny by a parliamentary panel, the government is considering the option of rolling out key elements of the programme through an executive decision that can be later subsumed by an act of Parliament. Concerned the bill that negotiated divides within the government and involved discussions with the Sonia Gandhi-headed National Advisory Council might be delayed till later this year, the Centre could...

The Union government and the Planning Commission will take a decision on the new Below Poverty Line (BPL) cap only after a report is submitted by the Parliamentary Committee on the Food security Bill and the completion of the Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC). As things stand, divergent views have already surfaced raising a question mark on the fate of the Food security Bill. Planning Commission member Abhijit Sen said...

-The Economist   A huge identity scheme promises to help India’s poor—and to serve as a model for other countries INDIA’S economy might be thriving, but many of its people are not. This week Manmohan Singh, the prime minister, said his compatriots should be ashamed that over two-fifths of their children are underfed. They should be outraged, too, at the infant mortality, illiteracy, lack of clean drinking water and countless other curses that...

-The Economist   Opposition to the world’s biggest biometric identity scheme is growing FOR a country that fails to meet its most basic challenges—feeding the hungry, piping clean water, fixing roads—it seems incredible that India is rapidly building the world’s biggest, most advanced, biometric database of personal identities. Launched in 2010, under a genial ex-tycoon, Nandan Nilekani, the “unique identity” (UID) scheme is supposed to roll out trustworthy, unduplicated identity numbers based on...

Centre convenes meeting of State Food Ministers on PDS modernisation A concerted move by the Centre to encourage the States to digitise ration cards has enabled it to weed out 2.96 crore bogus ration cards from the public distribution system. Of an estimated 10.56 crore ration cards, the number of cards has come down to 7.6 crores, Union Minister of States for Food and Consumer Affairs K.V. Thomas told journalists here. Bogus...