National Food Security Bill 2013
Only three percent of Indians pay income tax; our tax-GDP ratio is among the lowest in the world. This must change. Our elites must realise that India’s poverty has damaging consequences for them, and that they can help decrease it. The food security bill, with all its limitations, will hopefully contribute to generating such awareness, says Praful Bidwai.
After vacillating for years over taking any pro-people measures, the United Progressive Alliance finally did something bold and worthy by having the National Food Security Bill passed in Parliament -- a promise made in the UPA’s “first 100 days” agenda after its return to power in 2009.
The Bill won a resounding victory in the Lok Sabha, with a margin exceeding 100, because non-UPA parties including the Janata Dal-United, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and even the Shiv Sena felt they had no choice but to support it. It sailed through the Rajya Sabha too.
The stage was set by a rare, spirited speech by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, in which she described the legislation as India’s chance to ‘make history’ by abolishing hunger and malnutrition, and emphasised that India cannot afford not to have the law: “The question is not whether we can [raise the resources] or not. We have to do it.”
The NFSB has invested meaning, public purpose and a degree of legitimacy into the UPA’s otherwise corruption-ridden, shoddy and often appalling performance in government under an increasingly right-leaning leadership. This at once put the Bharatiya Janata Party on the defensive. Its leaders were reduced to opposing a measure that represents genuine social progress, and making thoughtless statements about the Bill being about ‘vote security’, not food security.
The BJP now has nothing to offer to the nation but obscurantist programmes like building a temple at Ayodhya, and parochial, and predatory pro-corporate agendas under Narendra Modi’s rabidly communal leadership.
The Bill is open to the criticism
After vacillating for years over taking any pro-people measures, the United Progressive Alliance finally did something bold and worthy by having the National Food Security Bill passed in Parliament -- a promise made in the UPA’s “first 100 days” agenda after its return to power in 2009.
The Bill won a resounding victory in the Lok Sabha, with a margin exceeding 100, because non-UPA parties including the Janata Dal-United, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and even the Shiv Sena felt they had no choice but to support it. It sailed through the Rajya Sabha too.
The stage was set by a rare, spirited speech by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, in which she described the legislation as India’s chance to ‘make history’ by abolishing hunger and malnutrition, and emphasised that India cannot afford not to have the law: “The question is not whether we can [raise the resources] or not. We have to do it.”
The NFSB has invested meaning, public purpose and a degree of legitimacy into the UPA’s otherwise corruption-ridden, shoddy and often appalling performance in government under an increasingly right-leaning leadership. This at once put the Bharatiya Janata Party on the defensive. Its leaders were reduced to opposing a measure that represents genuine social progress, and making thoughtless statements about the Bill being about ‘vote security’, not food security.
The BJP now has nothing to offer to the nation but obscurantist programmes like building a temple at Ayodhya, and parochial, and predatory pro-corporate agendas under Narendra Modi’s rabidly communal leadership.
The Bill is open to the criticism