Apart from the birth place of Hinduism and Buddhism, it has people from almost all the religions of the world. It has the second largest Muslim population in the world and some of its states are predominantly Christian. There are 18 languages recognised by the Indian constitution and there are hundreds of other languages and directs. India's cultural diversity needs hardly any mention. Above all, it is a highly vibrant democracy with a vigorous free press.
Policies have to, therefore, take into consideration pulls and pressures from various quarters.
While this makes it difficult to take decisions which are perceived to have potential for creating controversies, it also allows non-optimum use of available resources. Population control policies or targetisation of public distribution system are some of the examples, even though these and such other policies have serious implications for household food security. The continuing population explosion is marginalising all the socio-economic development achieved by the country and nowhere it is reflected as prominently as in the case of removal of poverty. In this presentation, more emphasis has been, therefore, given to production, availability and consumption of cereals, which are known to contribute around 70 percent of the energy and protein requirement and which happen to be the first objective to be attained by a poor household. The production, availability and consumption of pulses and other foodstuffs as also all the nutrients has also been examined to see the position of availability of staple and balanced diets.