About 6,348 tons of foodgrain stored in various government outlets across the country were damaged primarily due to storage pest attack and leakages in godowns in 2010-11, a fact which does not go down well for the country's food security. “The foodgrain get damaged due to various reasons such as storage pest attack, leakages in godowns, procurement of poor quality stocks, during movement of stocks, exposure to rains, floods, etc,” Union...

Why is every fourth Indian hungry? Why is every third woman in India anaemic and malnourished? Why is every second child underweight and stunted? Why has the hunger and malnutrition crisis deepened even as India has nine per cent growth? Why is “Shining India” a “Starving India”? In my view, hunger is a structural part of the design of the industrialised, globalised food system. Hunger is an intrinsic part of the...

Increase in offtake under various public distribution schemes. Supply of wheat and rice will have to be doubled if the proposed National Food Security Act for targeted beneficiaries is implemented with the current delivery mechanism, in which leakages are too high, the Economic Survey for 2010-11 has said. “Once we give a legal guarantee to people about the food that they are to receive, if we try to deliver on this promise...

There is no provision for the proposed National Food Security Bill in the budget proposals for 2011-12. The Bill will necessarily enhance the food subsidy as wheat and rice are to be made available at Rs.2 and Rs.3 a kg to the beneficiaries, but the budget does not reflect this. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee did make an announcement about bringing to Parliament the Bill “during the course of this year” but did...

The Sonia Gandhi-led national advisory council (NAC) has won decisive victories in keeping at bay the governments attempt to regulate right to information and ensuring the pro-tribal Forest Rights Act is made more effective for its intended beneficiaries. On the national Food Security Act -- the third bone of contention between the government and NAC -- the Council at its meeting on Saturday held its ground and advocated a staggered...