Implementation of food bill in India might be delayed, government adviser says

"The implementation of an ambitious bill that guarantees cheap food grains for India's poor could be pushed back to the next fiscal year, a top government adviser said," the Wall Street Journal reports. "[I]mplementing the bill in the fiscal year starting April 2013 would make financial and political sense for the government, which is facing a yawning budget gap and federal elections before May 2014," according to the newspaper, which adds the bill is "likely to be introduced in the budget session, which is due late February, C. Rangarajan, chairman of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, said in an interview." After a general debate, parliament would have to approve the bill, which "aims to provide subsidized grains to more than 60 percent of India's 1.2 billion people, with special provisions for pregnant women, destitute children and others," for it to become law, the newspaper writes, adding, "A government spokesman declined to comment on the matter Friday" (Sahu/Guha, 10/27).