India's economic standing and its policy landscape have come a long way since the 1943 Bengal famine. History saw buffer stocking of food grains as a famine-combating tool. Today, apart from serving as an effective hedge in times of famines, such grain stocks are a conduit deployed by the...

The National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013 combines and expands the scope of some existing food-based welfare schemes. It will be distributing raw rations, meal(s) and/or cash. Approximately 81.35 crore persons or 16.57 crore households are to benefit under the targeted public distribution...

The past fifty years have been a period of extraordinary food crop productivity growth, despite rising populations and increasing land scarcity, largely due to the Green Revolution. Despite these massive gains in productivity, malnutrition has persisted for close to a billion people in the...

Although nutrition contributes to welfare in and of itself, it also contributes to individual economic productivity, as well as national income growth. The argument that improving nutrition is an investment on par with other productivity-enhancing expenditures rather than simply a form of...

Since independence, India has come a long way from being a food-deficit to a food surplus country. With its varied agro-climatic conditions and large production base, the country has become a leading exporter of fresh and processed food products. The Indian government is keen to promote exports...

The public distribution system (PDS) has been one of the main policy instruments of the Government of India (GoI) to provide food security to the people of this country, especially the vulnerable ones. The recently enacted National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013, also relies heavily on it to...