The state of India's food security is worsening by the year. The cost of food items is increasing rapidly, making them unaffordable to a majority of the people. Added to these woes is the short supply of pulses and edible oils, which forces the Central government to import them.The government claims that it has attained self suffciency in food grain production.What is the measure of Self Sufficency, Whether it is Quality or Quantity. The claim of record breaking food grain production will not feed the hungry stomach of starving million Indians. The reports of large quantity of food grains getting rotted present a dsymal picture in the backdrop of hungry peole. Doing simple effective measures like improving the storage facilities of food grains, so that wastage food grains can be avoided, prompt movement to places of need will go a long way in reducing food shortage to some extent

Development of rural society in India is a fundamental problem being faced by the Government, NGOs, civil society, social scientists, policy planners etc. Economy plays a key role in a development, among other parameters, in any soiety. Within economy, the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of food is pivotal. Even if the production and supply of food is assured, the nutritional value of the food is an essential aspect. This paper looks into the mode of production of various types of food items in rural India, the problems in the distribution and exchange, and the ways in which these are consumed. The consumption aspect also takes into account the nutritional value of the food items. It argues that availability of sufficient nutritive food is essential for the development of rural society.

According to a report of the United Nations in which a large number of people will be affected by a severe shortage of food as a result of the effects of a terrible drought, which, combined with the increase of the prices of food and fuel as their scarcity is occurring in the Horn of Africa, FAO warned today. High rates of acute malnutrition and mortality.

The current crisis is not unusual or accidental, but that is chronic and long-lasting in the region. Where there is a union of all the nations of our planet to help this region of the drought. How to help the farmers and pastoralists to adapt to this new reality of high variability of the climate and more frequent extreme weather events, said Rod. Regional Coordinator for central and eastern Africa FAO emergency.

I intend to help these people who are like all humans and that without the support of the international community will have the suffering of the hunger,and other terrible consequences.

India is the second most populous country accounting for about 16.7 percent of the world population. Although the Indian economy has been growing steadily over the last two decades since the liberalization process was set in the nineties; its growth has been uneven when compared between different socio-economic groups, geographic regions and rural and urban settings. Affluence in the midst of poverty has been the main feature of Indian economy. Social-economic transformation over the years since independence has taken place mainly on the traditional structural formation that has pushed more than 90% of India's rural labour into informal sector with low productivity. This is the primary reason for mass poverty and food insecurity in the country. Poverty encompasses a lack of food security, education, health care, empowerment and capacity building. However, food insecurity is the basic question to answer to ending poverty.

Welfare schemes that are dispensed like charity should be seen as one time intervention only for they do not equip the individuals to come out of the vicious cycle of poverty that is then perpetuated from generation to generation. Thus, structural transformation in favour of rural working population would be the real answer to end poverty and food insecurity in India. This will gradually trigger capacity building; ensure access to food, education, health care.

The land acquisition by state administrative apparatus from the farmers is rampant in India. The administrative apparatus of the state did not make enough investment in rural areas and those who have been doing agriculture have not been educated and empowered to adopt alternative sources of livelihood. In India, more than seventy percent people are based on agriculture. Final reports of National Commission on Farmers ( NCF ) which was headed by M. S. Swaminathan observed that the acquisition of agricultural land in the name of the planned development or industrial growth would seriously affect the availability of food in future. The prime land must be conserve for agriculture and should not be diverted for non-agricultural purposes, or else food availability would suffer in the country, where 70 percent of the population still depend on agriculture and people living Below the Poverty line find it difficult to survive . Unfortunately, these words of wisdom appear to have become irrelevant to the state apparatus, which has used the Land Acquisition Act in the last two decades for massive acquisition of agriculture land in different parts of country for non-agricultural activities . This has not only adversely impacted farmers but also generated huge litigation and adjudication consumes substantial time of the courts. This sort of Land acquisition will ruin not only the current but future generations too and this is one of the reasons why the farmers who are deprived of their holdings commit suicide.

Jharkhand is one of the very rich state in terms of its natural resources, land, forest and minerals but on the other hand incidence of poverty is also very high. People in many areas live in poverty, hunger and destitution. The indicators of development which includes, literacy, mortality rates, infant mortality rate, unemployment and nutritional status, level of poverty, hunger etc. are at the bottom of the reports of hunger deaths in Jharkhand, are the clear indication of that a considerable number of the population is suffering from malnutrition, and hunger. But, in recent times a number of food security and social security scheme has been launched in the country. These are Public Distribution System, Mid Day Meal, ICDS, Annapurna Yojna, Antodaya Yojna, National Family Benefit Scheme, National Maternity Benefit Scheme, National Age Old Pension etc. These schemes are also for the Jharkhand state but proper implementation of these are lacking. The non- implementation of these schemes is clear violation of fundamental right of the people in the area. According to government estimates, around 23.22 lakhs families in the rural areas live below the poverty line, out of which 3.91 lakhs belong to SCs and 8.79 lakhs to STs. This paper will deal in the above background of the Jharkhand state and particularly in the community, the Bedia, a neglected tribe of Jharkhand. The population of the Bedia tribe is distributed in Ranchi and Ramgarh districts of Jharkhand.

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is a milestone for providing employment to the rural areas. This programme is the biggest programme of the world ensuring the right of employment for eliminating the poverty and malnutrition. This Programme provides at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in a financial year to every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work. It also mandates one third participation for women. This programme started in 200 districts of India from February,2, 2006 and then extended to an additional 130 districts in 2007-08. The remaining districts with rural areas were brought under the Act with effect from April, 01, 2008. About 3.80 crore households have been provided employment under the programme. During the same period, 122.37 crore persondays employment has been generated across the country out of which 60.45 crore were women( 49.40 % ), 27.27% crore ( 22.62 % ) SCs, and 20.97 crore ( 17.13 % ) STs.

The Act has successfully raised the bargaining power of agricultural labour, resulting in higher agricultural wages, improved economic outcomes and reduction in distress migration. However, Jharkhand government in last three financial years failed to utilize funds received from the centre for implementation of the schemes under the national rural Employment Guarantee Act. Here in this paper an attempt has been made to look into the status of National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in Jharkhand and its beneficiaries.

The Bastar district of Chhattisgarh (India) is a great verity of natural and cultural phenomena it is situated in the south eastern Conner of the state. One is apt to presume that the rural people of Bastar should their livelihood mostly from agriculture. The agriculture in Bastar is predominantly crop forming. The major livelihoods in this area are crop production, labour, poultry-pig-goat and fish. The issue of livelihood improvement is addressed through measures that help in draught mitigation, risk reduction, resource conservation and optimization and income and employment generation. For this purpose improvement of the existing farming systems is important with the help of relevant technologies, demonstrations and capacity building of the farmers and other stakeholders in crop production. Providing coordinated and effective Indian Government support to the Rural Economy Agriculture Department (DREA), and the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) in their effort to advance food security and agriculture development in Bastar region. However, the districts of Chhattisgarh fare poorly on nutritional outcomes, with only the more urbanized and industrialized districts doing better. Thus, ensuring food security and improving the nutritional status is a challenge for the state of Chhattisgarh as a whole. At the same time, it is also necessary to pay special attention to the food security needs of the tribes of Bastar region.

There are several programmes for rural development by the Central government as well as by the state governments. Many programme are coming down since independence in the Five year Plans in different names in different time periods. All these programmes had a Top- Down approach in implementation till early 1990s. It was observed that the only 15 percent of the allocated fund was reaching to the people or to the beneficiaries. Then it was decided to change the implementation approach from top- Down to Down- up approach. Keeping this idea, Panchayati Raj system was revived and much power and rights were given to the gram sabhas at the grass root level. Thus Panchayati Raj Institute was empowered and since then all the rural development programmes are to be implemented and routed through Gram Panchayats in India. Panchayati Raj Institution Act was extended in the Schedule Areas for the Tribal people. The Act is popularly known as PESA Act 1996, where special provisions and reservations have been provided to the tribal people. Jharkhand is having Fifth Schedule are with PESA Act. Unfortunately, Jharkhand had no PRI system for a long period, from 1978 to 2010. In this period Rural Development Programmes did not reach properly to the people due to bureaucratic system and absent of decentralization of power. Moreover, till date decentralization of power to the Gram sabhas have not been provided.

There is very strong relationship between the socioeconomic conditions of various forest centered migrant tribal communities and income from forest based common property resources specially in the forest centered areas of Duarse in northern West Bengal. In the past these poor people mainly collected and sold fire woods, other furniture woods, flesh and skin of various wild animals, honey etc. In such a context food security and other daily livelihood conditions of these migrant tribal groups have been facing a great uncertainty and serious threats due to imposed restrictions. Generally it is refers to that in the Duarse areas there is a myth in the mind of people that forests is always a mark of sign for the development of people, maintaining their livelihoods and most prominent ways of poverty eradication.

Directly or indirectly the total way of living of these forest centered tribal groups have been influenced by forest and some other geo-physical resources of the area. Since 1990's Department of Forest and some other Dept. of Govt. of West Bengal began to start various developmental activities through ecotourism and many other ways for the complete development of these tribal groups specially to restrict deforestation and extinction of wild animals as well as to ensure more better food security and other daily livelihood conditions. At the same time the Govt. have utilize these tribal groups as the most dependable force to prevent mass destruction of forests and wild animals by the neighboring people and other dishonest persons.

The tribals communities form a hefty chunk of the total population of the Jharkhand state. The problems of tribes are manifold. Malnutrition is one of the major ones among these. The risk is increasing day-by-day with extensive deforestation, frequent climatic calamities and the change in the traditional economy. Study it is found that the high mortality rate among the tribes, might be lot of reason behind it but malnutrition and starvation death are one important reason behind it.

The three basic needs of mankind since the days of Adam and eve had been food, clothing and shelter. But,it is a pity to see that some people, still in this 21st century, are not able to arrange for a square meal and suffers from what is call 'food insecurity'.

The Mahalis, an aborigine artisan tribe of eastern India, with occupational specialization in bamboo craft have been operating as a case-like group within the broad framework of the agrarian economic structure of the caste-based Hindu peasantry in rural India. In the changing context of modernization, many of the bamboo-craft that the Mahalis produce are replaced by industrial products in the market. The Mahalis thus have to adopt diverse occupational strategies to earn their day-to-day livelihood and lead a life peripheral both to the peasant economy and the industrial economy. The concept of their good life is just two square meals a day, a little cloth to wear, a little drink and a small hut to stay. How can overall development take place if these tribal people suffer from tremendous food insecurity each ad every day?

Government and the society as a whole should take some policies and initiatives to assure their food at-least. Government can take some steps, like to give loan for basketry, to fix a proper market price for their product, promote their products in handicrafts exhibition and other fairs that occurs regularly in this country.

There are more than five hundred Scheduled Tribe in India. Besides, there are many non-scheduled communities who are resemble the tribal identity and having the tribal antecedences .The Scheduled Tribe list is a statutory list of the government of India for all constitutional purposes. There are seventy five Primitive Tribes in India out of the Scheduled Tribe list on the basis of their backwardness. They are grouped out in the year1975. But, there are state wise variation in the list of Primitive Tribes. listed as Primitive Tribal Group (PTG) in one state is not necessarily primitive tribe in another state. These primitive tribal groups are the most vulnerable groups and often termed as Vulnerable Tribal Groups. The criteria for being in primitive Group has been formulated by the social scientists and the planners and they must have pre-agricultural technology, a low level of literacy which is less than five percent and a marginal or stagnant rate of population growth. Their economic production is very low and survival is at stake. The majority of the PTGs are still at the hunting and food gathering stage. The PTGs are further may be classified on the basis of their economic and occupation, such as hunting and food gathers, artisan groups and Sweden cultivators. In the state of Jharkhand, the Asur,Birhor, Birjia, Korwa,Mal Paharia, Sauria Paharia,and Sabar are the Primitve tribal Groups.

Micro nutrient malnutrition is a serious public health problem: Globally More than 250 million children in developing countries are at risk of Vitamin A deficiency, More than 2000 million women & children are at the risk of iron deficiency, and More than 1500 million people in the World are at risk of iodine deficiency. Cost of Treating Malnutrition is 27 Times More Than the Investment required for its prevention. Research carried out by me on: 1) Rural Development, 2) Women Empowerment 3) Food Security & Lively Hood Security to improve the nutritional status showed a significant improvement in nutritional status of women & children as well as Socio economic status of rural women.

The Oraons are originally inhabitants of Chotanagpur plateau. After a long migratory way, a group of this tribal community is now finally settled as agriculturist tribe in several parts of forest village of North-Bengal. They utilize the natural and human resources available to them by their own cultural means. These cultural means are the best adaptive mode for their survival. So, it can be said that, making of one's living is culturally defined in particular manner. Paddy cultivation is the main way to ensure their food. They use very simple tool and technology to produce their two ends meals. In this context, an attempt has been made to describe the food securing process of a tribal village, situated at Lataguri near the Gorumara National Park of the northern part of West Bengal.

Vaclav smil in his book, Feeding the World writes that China could feed the world. A few decades ago food production in Purnia district of Bihar was of such magnitude that the leaders said that Purnia could feed Bihar. If these slogans have any significance, then it would be no exaggeration to say that Punjab could feed the rest of India. However, the sad part of the story is that every year hundreds of the people die of starvation in rural India, and million suffer from malnourishment or undernourishment. The panel would attempt to understand that why in spite of magnitude of food production, Indian population suffers from starvation? Whether it is because of delay in the land reform or because of mismanagement by the state, or because of the lackluster attitude of the population?

The socio-economic development of the schedule tribes of Jharkhand, Jharkhand Tribal Developmnet Programme (JTDP) come a long way since the inception in 2001 and beginning of actual implementation from April 2003, assisted by IFAD and world Food Programme. All along there have been concern for effective implementation with community participation for attaining the set objects of ensuring household food security, improving the livelihood opportunities and standard of living for approx 34109 families. Over the last six years, programme intervened in different livelihood domains namely labour intensive soil, and water conservation activities, farming system improvement, community based forestry, fishery and livestock development etc.

In this paper an attempt is made to analysed the impact of JYDP on schedule tribes, with special reference, Agriculture, Farming, Nursery management, livestock sectors in west singhbhum and Ranchi district of Jharkhand state. A structure schedule was used randomly. Besides administering schedule to 100 beneficiaries of JDP, fivcve focus group discussion and observation was made to collect comprehensive information from target group pertaining to impact of JTDP on their socio-economic development.

Maize (Zea Maize, as the major cereal crop of Sikkim occupying nearly 40,000 hectare of area has thus far been the mainstay of the farming community, principally the Lepcha, then Nepalese and the Bhutia. The total production hovers around 60,000 tonnes with an average yield of 1,500 kg. per hectare. Such productivity under rainfed condition can only be possible with organic vermicompost manure and nominal application of chemical fertilizers. Contrary to say that in the USA and other advanced countries productivity of hybfid maize is at exceptionally high levels of 8 to 10 tonnes per hectare. In Sikkim, the maize yields generally decrease with increase in altitude, which can be attributed to absence of location specific varieties, low use of chemical fertillizers and unfavourable climatic contiditions particularly during the pre-Kharif seasons. Besides, there are no improved or high yielding varieties for the higher altitude. An attempt is made to highlight the situations and conditions for maize farming in Sikkim in the present article.

Food insecurity is a burning problem in third world countries. In India alone, about 30 million people have been added to the ranks of the food insecurity since the mid-1990s. Sunderban, deltaic region of the Ganges located in state of West Bengal of India, is no exception to it. It is home to four million people whose primary means of livelihood is agriculture followed by fishery and honey collection. Agriculture is mainly single crop economy while fishing activity is primarily small scale in nature. However, these two activities together with honey collection do not generate enough resources to meet their basic needs. Consequently majority of people suffer from food insecurity. Lack of other means of livelihood coupled with high density of population has resulted in the out-migration of the people. The 'Aila', the devastating Cyclonic Storm which had struck the Sunderban in 2009, further worsened the situation as it not only rendered more than a million of people homeless but also flooded the farmland with saline water thus making them unsuitable for agriculture. The post 'Aila' period witnessed a mass migration of male working population of different villages of Sunderban to different parts of India. Now majority of those who reside in villages comprise of mainly old persons and ladies. It creates negative impact on normal bondage of familial relationships specially between husband and wife and also among different families of village. Ineffective implementation of rural development programmes have only added to the misery of people.

This paper aims at to elaborate the persistence of inhuman activities of women in the five rural Blocks of Hazaribag distirct viz Hazaribag sadar, Churchu, Barkagoan, Ichak, and Katkamsandi. A comparision has also been made with the tribal women of the study block. Among the non-tribal people it has been found that the female itself is while responsible for doing inhuman work while the males are comparatively less indulged in doing so. Dowry and Sexful harassment are the most important factors among the middle as well as lower classes of family. While among the well to do family it is not easy to take out the view of the exploiting authority.

Among all the tribal communities study area such activities are found very rarely.

All such Social insecurity of the women are directly responsible for development the rural area in the context of 21 century.

The author will feel praise worthy if the present conclusion and suggestion will be taken into consideration while implementing the development programme for the rural as well as tribal development

Santhal is the largest tribal group of Jharkhand and third largest group of India. According to 2001 Census their population in Jharkhand is 2410509. Santhal Pargana is the highly concentrated area of Santhals in Jharkhand. Santhal is Proto-Austroloid racial stock and linguistically they are of Austro- Asiatic family. Their culture and tradition are very rich. This research paper is the study of three villages of three different panchayats of Dumka district namely jadi, Bokna and Kargakhil. In these villages Santhals are suffering from hunger and malnutrition. There is a red alert on their Food Security. Public distribution system (PDS) has been considered as the most important food based safety not introduced by the government of India. The basic objective of the PDS in India is to provide essential consumer goods at cheap and subsidized price to the consumers. So as to insulate them from the impact of rising price of these commodities and maintain the minimum nutritional status of population. As the PDS system is concern the empirical studies of the their 3 Santhal dominated villages of Dumka district of Jharkhand is showing that the poor Santhals have not benefited much from the PDS as their dependence on the open market has been much higher than on the PDS from most of the commodities. ThePDS details show the ground reality of the Food Security for Santhal. This paper will deal with the ground reality of the food security of the Santhal tribe and the existing PDS system in the contemporary situation.

Public Distribution System has been considered as the most important food based safety net. The basic objective of the Public Distribution System (PDS) in India is to provide essential consumer goods at cheap and subsidized price to the public. In addition to food grains, PDS has also been used in India for the distribution of edible oils, sugar, kerosene and cloth. The most important covered under PDS in India have been rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene. Besides these four items which constitute about 86 percent of PDS sale, there are other items too but having fewer shares in PDS sale.Moreover, the PDS in India is not universal system now a day. Public distribution system is transforming in to Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) and having dual pricing structure. For families below the poverty line (BPL) price is fixed at 50 percent of the economic cost where as for above poverty line (APL) is fixed at equal to economic cost. Irony is that for making the PDS more efficient, gradually discarding the Universal Public Distribution System and limiting the system to only Targeted Public Distribution System among the BPL and weaker sections only. In India unbeatable price hiking is taking place. In this situation public distribution system on subsidized price remains only means of food security among the rural downtrodden and weaker section people. This paper intends to find the status of PDS in Purulia district of West Bengal in India.

The primary purpose of this exercise has been to study the status of implementation of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) in the IGSSS managed and MISEREOR sponsored project entitled 'People's Empowerment for Accessing Rights to Livelihood (PEARL) operational areas to identify and assess challenges in promotion of food and livelihood security of vulnerable communities living in Bihar (one of the most backward states of India). Yet another hidden purpose of it has been to add to the literature on the subject that would help the civil society organisations and the governments to improve their style of functioning to make the MNREGPs more effective.

The study found that the overall impact of the MNREGSs in the PEARL project areas of Bihar and Jharkhand has not been very much impressive, yet some positive outcomes have started yielding in the form of knowledge building. There is need to maintain the process as well as the spirit of the community villagers enabling them to exercise their legal entitlements under MNREGSs. To make these MNREGSs impressive, the PEARL project workers must search out the reason why the same laboring class families easily agree to pay for lucrative amount demanded by the job providers of other sectors (both government or private) to provide even temporary jobs, while the same families show apathy towards demanding jobs under MNREGA schemes.

Agriculture is the main source of livelihood. Most of the people of Khunti are either small or marginal farmers with less than one hectare of farmland. Majority of the population is tribal in the Khunti sub-division and they are dependent on agriculture and forests for their livelihood. Lack of food security from the land has compelled many tribal families to migrate out of their own villages. This is despite the fact that the existing landholdings can provide stable livelihoods to the tribal families. Lack of land development, irrigation, credit, know-how for improved agriculture, access to market etc. act as serious constraints leading to a large number of impoverished tribal families. The area is famous for the Lac cultivation. A large part of the India's total lac production comes from this area.Lac, a natural polymer (resin) is produced by a tiny insect, Kerria lacca (Kerr), which is purposely cultured on shoots of several species of trees, mainly palas, kusum and ber. This agricultural profession of lac cultivation is a subsidiary source of income for a large number of families in the area.

The paper will discuss about the following points:--

1. Recognize traditional occupation

2. Create employment opportunities in village

3. Fix and effectively implement a minimum wage

4. Organize unorganized sector workers