Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Thursday that the government will introduce a Food Security Bill that promises cheaper food grains to low income groups at the earliest in parliament which will help ease a prolonged pricing pressure that has battered low - income groups.

While New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Budget and Government Accountability (CBGA) acknowledged the government’s urgency on solving hunger in the country as prominsing, it cautioned that the governmnet may not have figured out a strategy yet.

“How this deep rooted problem can be addressed is something that has raised serious concerns,” a note in its publication, Budget Track, said.

Different authors who have been published in the latest volume of the Budget Track voice concerns on constraints crippling an universal right to food such as implementation of food-related schemes, urban destitution, the right to work, starvation deaths, and even general issues of transparency and accountability, saying these have to be considered as parts of the the larger campaign towards ensuring right to food.

Read the latest issue of the Budget Track.

Towards Zero Hunger - By Devinder Sharma
Aiming for a Substantive Food Security Act - Dipa Sinha
Destitution, Social Barriers and Food Rights - Harsh Mander
Securing Food for the People - Jayati Ghosh
Food Guarantee: Issue is Poor Household Confidence, not Kilos and Rupees - K S Gopal
Should Public Distribution System be Targeted? - Madhura Swaminathan
Food Security in India - N.C. Saxena
Right To Food and National Food Security Act - S. Mahendra Dev
Food Security sans PDS: Universalisation through Targeting? - Smita Gupta
Budget and Policy Tracking - Ria Sinha