PRAGOTI

India has emerged as a nation with the unenviable distinction of being home to millions of hungry people even as her granaries are overflowing with food. For the second time in the current decade, the country has witnessed an enormous build-up of food-stocks even as majority of the population fail to attain the minimum nutritional standards.

R.Ramakumar wrote this piece on the Unique Identification Project as part of a paper published in a journal nearly six months ago. Since then, the UIDAI has released a draft UID bill and ideas on how the project helps the Public Distribution System. Ramakumar makes a critique of the project, its goals, and the underlying philosophy. 

The PDS is the most important instrument of the government for ensuring food security and also price stability. In the recent past, the PDS has failed in achieving both these objectives. In analysing the reasons for this, most of the mainstream discussions continue to bark up the wrong tree of PDS administration, whereas the root of the problem is that the PDS is a targeted system, rather than being universal.Dipa Sinha writes.

A meeting of the ministers and secretaries of the various state governments in India featured a discussion on the proposed Food Security Bill in the centre. The meeting elaborated on the provisions and came up with its declaration regarding the same.  The Hindu newspaper also reported about this meeting and the report can be found here. Pragoti brings the text of the declaration of the meeting held in Trivandrum on 19th September 2009.