PRAGOTI

Yesterday, the Times of India published a story on its front page titled Food Security Act may Raise Prices Globally. This story argues that with the enactment of the Food Security Act, in the event of a drought, India will have to import food from the global market, which will lead to an increase in global food prices. This line of argument is absolutely wrong and only shows the total lack of basic economics knowledge that these reporters have.

The case of the Food Security Bill gets curiouser and curiouser.  What started off as a fight between universalization and targeting has ended (or so it would seem) in a complete victory in the National Advisory Council, Government of India (NAC) for targeting through universalization (if such a thing was possible), with the honourable exception of Prof Jean Dreze, who has to be commended for his ‘note of disagreement’. On 30th August, 2010, the Working Group of the NAC had recommended ‘universalization with differentiated entitlements’, dividing the poor into two categories, 42% in ‘antyodaya’ and the rest in ‘aam’. They found the best way to kill a Bill; make it so complicated that it is completely unworkable in practice.

The UPA’s promise to ensure adequate availability of food articles in the country for assured food security to all Indian citizens through the deliberations of the NAC is fraught with a series of exclusions. It excludes all APL households or roughly 73% of the people in 75% of the country from its coverage on the basis of the dubious and discredited Planning Commission estimates, writes Simta Gupta.

An article towards understanding the political-ideological roots of the GM controversy in Indian agriculture with special reference to Marxist theory and practice, is attached with this post (in PDF format). The essay begins with setting the context of the currently raging debate on BT-Brinjal and reviewing a select set of empirical assessments of BT-Cotton in India on relevant parameters. It then moves to critically examine the role of ideology in how competing political forces comprehend the food and nutrition crisis in India.