Govt Plans to Sell Foodgrain Meant for Poor to Private Sector, at Subsidised Rates
Rice from the Food Corporation of India will be sold at a subsidy to private distilleries while India fares badly on hunger indicators.
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Editor: Dr. G.G. Parikh | Associate Editor: Neeraj Jain | Managing Editor: Guddi
Rice from the Food Corporation of India will be sold at a subsidy to private distilleries while India fares badly on hunger indicators.
Prices of basic sources of protein like meat, eggs, pulses, and cooking oils have zoomed up, as has the cost of cooking gas.
Rice meant for the poor will be sold at subsidised rates to privately-owned ethanol distilleries. The industries will be given cheap loans and exempted from Environmental Clearances.
The absurdity of conservative economic policy leading to shortage of people’s purchasing power is now becoming clear, even to capitalists, though not to Modi government.
India ranked among the ten largest food producers globally. Yet, India’s rank in the Global Hunger Index has been falling over the years. Why is India unable to distribute food to its own people?
Five states saw over 460,000 excess deaths in the first five months of 2021, but the official Covid-19 toll in these states in this period accounts for only 6% of these excess deaths. How many of the remaining 94% are ‘missed’ Covid-19 deaths will not be easy to disentangle.
The last seven years show that democracy, rules and regulations can be the perfect cover to suspend democratic values and civil rights. Plus review of a new book on the Emergency by Christophe Jaffrelot and Pratinav Anil.
As India has been facing a demand crunch since before the pandemic, prominent economists and activists have been relentlessly asking the government to pump up spending to stimulate demand.
Cairn Energy, a UK-based corporation, has filed a suit in New York to claim the international assets of Air India. A discussion of the larger issues involved, such as the relationship between big capital, especially international capital, and the State; and also the nature of the corporation itself.
Report by prominent economist Jean Dreze and Anmol Somanchi highlights the severe economic distress and food crisis suffered by a vast majority of Indian poor following the 2020 lockdown. It demands a stronger wave of relief measures to avoid a repeat of the crisis.
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