The Indian Judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, has on many occasions reaffirmed that the “right to life” enshrined in Article 21 means something more than animal existence and includes the right to live with dignity: it includes all aspects which make life meaningful and complete. The National Food Security Act was brought into force from July 3, 2013. It is an act to provide food and nutritional security using human life cycle approach, by ensuring access to adequate quantity of quality food at affordable prices to people to live a life of dignity and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. Food security is no less important than national security. It needs to be given top priority in the national planning. We cannot depend on other countries for maintaining security and mitigating food inflation. This paper takes a close look at the issue of food security.

Since independence, achieving food security for all has been a national goal. Jawaharlal Nehru articulated this goal by emphasizing “everything else can wait but not agriculture”. When we talk of food security, we mean easy availability of and access to food at all times in sufficient quantity in a safe and nutritious form to meet the dietary requirements and food preferences for an active, healthy and productive life. Food security is in fact a prerequisite for the economic and social stability of any nation. Sustainable food security requires a stable supply of food and properly functioning of agricultural markets. Though India is one of the largest producers of the food in the world, nearly 300 million people struggle for meeting two square meals a day and 21% of the national population (230 million) is malnourished. This indicates the issues of accessibility to adequate and nutritive food to the poor. Further, it is well documented that most poor families in the world spend 80% of their total income on food grains and insufficient purchasing power deprives them of accessing food in right quantity. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 asserts in Article 25(1) that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control”. The Indian Judiciary, especially the Supreme Court, has on several occasions reaffirmed that the ”right to life” enshrined in Article 21 means something more than animal instinct and includes the right to live with dignity: it would include all aspects which make life meaningful, complete and living. The challenge of meeting the food requirement of an ever-increasing population can only be faced by practicing sustainable agriculture, protecting natural resources from being degraded and polluted, and using production technologies that conserve and enhance the natural resources base of crops. Therefore, the government policy should be oriented towards removing the supply side and demand side bottlenecks of the food economy.

Law Review Journal, Non-State Actors, Food Security, Public Interest Litigation (PIL), Fundamental Right, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), right to life, Issues and Concerns.