Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction
INDIA at present finds itself in the midst of a paradoxical situation: endemic mass-hunger coexisting with the mounting food grain stocks. The food grain stocks available with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) stand at an all time high of 62 million tonnes against an annual requirement of around 20 million tonnes for ensuring food security. Still, an estimated 200 million people are underfed and 50 million on the brink of starvation, resulting in starvation deaths. The paradox lies in the inherent flaws in the existing policy and implementation bottlenecks. Ensuring food security ought to be an issue of great importance for a country like India where more than one-third of the population is estimated to be absolutely poor and one-half of all children malnourished in one way or another. There have been many emerging issues in the context of food security in India in the last two decades. These are: economic liberalization in the 1990s and its impact on agriculture and food security; establishment of WTO: particularly the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) under it; challenges of climate change; crisis of the three Fs, viz., food prices, fuel prices, and financial crisis; The phenomenon of hunger amidst plenty, i.e., accumulation of stocks in the early years of this decade and in 2008-09 along with high levels of poverty; introduction of targeting in the Public Distribution System (PDS) for the first time in the 1990s; Right to Food campaign for improving food security in the country and the Supreme Court Orders on mid-day meal schemes;
Proposal for National Food Security Law (Right to Food); and (viii) monitorable targets under the Tenth and Eleventh Five Year Plans similar to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on poverty and women and child nutrition. These developments in the last two decades have provided both opportunities and challenges for food and nutrition security of the country
o Securing employment as a fundamental right linked to the Right to Food Longest continuing mandamus on the Right to Food in the World o 51 Interim Orders so far; more than 500 affidavits; nearly 70 Interim Applications
Impact so far
Universalisation of MDMS (120 million children get school meals) and ICDS (Government would need to double the ICDS centres to 1.4 million centres covering 60 million children under the age of six) Managed to restrict the lowering of BPL quotas by GoI from 36% to 26% Increase in off-take of subsidised food-grains through the targeted public distribution system Increased budgetary allocation for ICDS, Old Age Pensions (3 times the amount)
Passage of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act which guarantees 100 days of employment a year (at minimum wages) Provided Civil Society an anchor to engage/ confront the State and created spaces for civil society to engage in food/ employment programmes Brought the discourse on food rights to the centre-stage of governance in the States and GoI Has been largely effective in provision of gratuitous relief (Tea Garden Workers in West Bengal). Created the environment for the passage of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
Reference
http://www.hindu.com http://www.oxfamindia.org http://uk.oneworld.net http://www.unicef.org