Women and Food Insecurity in India： A Study on Democratic Institutional.docVIP

Women and Food Insecurity in India： A Study on Democratic Institutional 　　[a]PhD. Lecturer. Glasgow School for Business and Society， Glasgow Caledoninan University， UK. 　　Research area： Political economy. 　　[b]Institute of Development Studies， University of Sussex， UK. 　　*Corresponding author. 　　Received 20 August 2013； accepted 16 October 2013 　　Abstract 　　This paper is trying to examine the democratic institutional responses to the problem of women and food insecurity as both are embedded together in Indian society. The paper tries to locate the responses and interventions in the issue of women and food insecurity from the different democratic institutions of India i.e. the government， judiciary， media and political parties. Although food insecurity affects people across the board but we are focusing only on women， as they are more vulnerable to it. 　　Key words： India； British； Public Distribution System； Economic policy 　　Bhabani Shankar Nayak， Geeta Sinha （2013）. Women and Food Insecurity in India： A Study on Democratic Institutional Responses and Interventions for Food Security. Canadian Social Science， 9（5）， -0. Available from： http：///index.php/css/article/view/j.css.1923669720130905.2744 　　DOI： http：///10.3968/j.css.1923669720130905.2744. 　　INTRODUCTION 　　The evolution of public distribution of food grains in India had its origin in the ‘rationing’ system introduced by the British during the World War II. It had started with an aim of combating food insecurity by maintaining price stability of food and food products in the market and at the same time to provide food security to the poor. In view of the fact that the rationing system and its successor， the Public Distribution System （PDS） plays an important role in attaining higher levels of the household food security. Its basic aim is to provide essential commodities such as rice wheat， sugar， edible oil， soft coke and kerosene at subsidized prices. The huge network of PDS is a major instrum