India is often cited as a land of paradoxes. This is certainly true when it comes to food security. Despite a decline in poverty, close to 30 per cent of its people are food insecure and one-half of its children malnourished in one way or another. And yet the country has a stock of more than 60 million tones of foodgrains stored through government’s procurement. Increased food prices, shrinkage of area under foodgrains and escalating food subsidy are now the major concerns with regard to food security, rather than freedom from hunger. Food security has a number o dimensions that go beyond supply and demand. Ultimately, the key question is that of the ability to access and effectively utilize food by all people, at all times, to lead a healthy life. This volume discusses food security in India in this broad framework and compiles the contribution of a good number of scholars in a single volume. It is not only a comprehensive publication, but also one which addresses critical issues and emerging concerns on food security such as the demand for and supply of foodgrains in future; policy response to domestic reforms and globalisation; regional scenario and micro-level experiences and ongoing perspectives such as the working of the PDS, nutrition and right to food. The book will be extremely useful for all those concerned with analysis of and the formulation of policy for food security.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR K.P. Kannan
K.P. Kannan is Fellow and Director of the Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum. He also holds the Indian Planning commission Chair in Development Economics at the Centre. He is author of several books and articles on a wide range of development issues including labour, poverty, social security and human development. He has served in various national and international bodies. During 2002-03 he worked as an Expert Member in the Technical Secretariat of the World commission on Social Dimensions of Globalisation constituted by the International Labour Organisation, Geneva.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Nira Ramachandran
Nira Ramachandran is a development consultant and Senior Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Human Development, New Delhi. Prior to this, she was engaged in post-doctoral research on sustainable development as an ICSSR Senior Fellow at the LBSNAA, Mussoorie, where she also spent two years as the Co-ordinator, Centre for Sustainable Development. Her previous appointments were as CSIR Senior Fellow, Delhi University; Assistant Professor, Bangalore University and Research Fellow, IIM, Bangalore. She holds a Ph.D. in Regional Development from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and has been trained at the Institute for International Studies and Training, Fujinomiya, Japan. She has lectured extensively and conducted training programmes in the areas of food security, environmental sustainability, primary education and project management. She has several publications to her credit including a book entitled Monitoring Sustainability: Indices and Techniques of Analysis (2000) and Carrying Capacity of Mussoorie (co-author), which is forthcoming. She has also worked as Consultant for International Organisations like the FAO and is EDI Fellow of the World Bank.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR S. Mahendra Dev
S. Mahendra Dev is presently the director of Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad. He did his Ph.D. from the Delhi School of Economics and his Post-doctoral research at the Economic Growth Centre, Yale University and was faculty member at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai for 11 years. He was Senior Fellow at Rajiv Gandhi Foundation during 1996-97 and Visiting Professor at University of Bonn, Germany in 1999. He has written extensively on agricultural development, poverty and public policy, food security, employment guarantee schemes, social security, farm and non-farm employment. He has more than 70 research publications in national and international journals. He has been a consultant and advisor to many international organisations like the UNDP, UNICEF, World Bank, International Food Policy Research Institute and ESCAP. He has been a member of several government Committees including Prime Minister's Task force on Employment.
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