The Planning Commission has put up a difficult poser before an empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on food security suggesting to do away with the above poverty line (APL) category under the public distribution system (PDS).

A projected delay in the rains over the Hindi heartland including UP, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, is giving jitters to the farm ministry, which is trying to increase output in these low-productivity states. To top it, defunct water resources in these areas are compounding the problem. The resultant water scarcity is affecting the preparation of paddy nurseries this in turn is likely to delay shifting of saplings into the main fields in the month of August.

The National Advisory Council, headed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, will review the draft Food Security Bill at its first full-scale meeting on July 1.
“The NAC will discuss what shape the draft Food Security Bill should take,” a government source said.

The National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, is all set to review the draft Food Security Bill in its first fullscale meeting on July 1.
“The NAC will discuss what shape the draft food security bill should take up,” said a government source.

Concerned over the “inefficient and corrupt” targeted public distribution system (TPDS), critical to the success of the proposed National Food Security Act, the government will ask the states to immediately plug its loopholes.

Concerned over the bogus below poverty line (BPL) card owners, which defeats the purpose of social welfare schemes, the government has decided to rope in the villagers for the first time to get information about the poorest of the poor. The exercise, dubbed as ultra poor count, will run parallel with the BPL census 2010, for which a detailed methodology has been worked out.

Government employees earning Rs 10,000 a month, people with electricity and water connections, bank accounts and LIC policies and those paying income-tax will be automatically excluded from the list of poor persons under new methodology for the 2010 BPL census.

Confusion prevailed in the food ministry over the scheduled meeting of an empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on food on Thursday in the absence of food and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, recuperating from a minor surgery in Mumbai.

India is eyeing the world and how. Growing food security concerns have forced the government to encourage Indian corporates to till foreign farmlands and bring the produce back home.

Concerned over the rise of Left-wing extremism, which occurred due to the widening chasm between the locals and the government, the Centre has asked the nine Naxal-affected states to immediately address poor implementation of the Panchayat (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA).