The Left parties in India will be pounding the pavement during December and January in a bid to collect 50 million signatures for their food security campaign, which aims to initiate a universal public distribution system.
The proposed system aims to address certain perceived imbalances in current food security law, namely: it would bring about a universal public distribution system (PDS) without dividing people into categories of below-the-poverty-line and above-the-poverty-line; introduce legislation that would supply 35kg of foodgrains at no more than Rs 2 per kilo; and not allow a cash transfer scheme as part of the PDS.
Representatives of the Left parties—CPM, CPI, Forward Bloc and RSP—will go door-to-door until February in the hope of meeting their signature target before submitting the petition to parliament. As food prices continue to gradually increase, and crop harvests become ever more inconsistent due in part to irregular weather patterns, the issue of food security is proving to be the dark horse of the climate change debate.
The link between climate change and food security may not be as categorically clear in the mind of the consumer as, say, the link between global warming and glaciers melting, yet it is highly tangible given that the issue of food availability affects each and every one of us on a daily basis.
In an effort to keep these issues at the forefront of the collective public conscious and push for legislatively-backed universal access to food, the Left parties also staged a month-long campaign back in July when headlines about rising food prices were rife.
To find out more about the overall campaign, check out this guide (PDF) put together by the four parties in July this year.
Author: Anna Rees/ RESET editorial
