CBPS 2016 Annual Endowment Lecture on Budgets was delivered by Dr. Madhura Swaminathan

Centre for Budget and Policy Studies, Bangalore organises an Annual Endowment Lecture on Budgets every year at the Indian Institute of World Culture in Basavangudi, Bangalore. This year, Dr. Madhura Swaminathan who is a Professor at the Economic Analysis Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore delivered the lecture. The title of the talk was: ‘Food security and Agriculture: Implications of current policy and budget’.

It was an insightful lecture on the major issues of food security. The lecture addressed the issues of food security that she defined as all people at all times having economic and physical access to sufficient and nutritious food. She focused on two aspects of food security: production and consumption of food grains. She concluded by saying that the current policies or the budget do not address the problem of the marginal farmer, nor does it address the problem of chronic hunger, and that this is a huge problem that we have to confront.