84 SOCIAL SCIENTIST southern states led by Kerala performing much better than the rest), the PDS has in general 'failed in providing cheap food and food security on a mass scale to households that are undernourished or vulnerable to under-nourishment.5 In spite of about five decades of operation since its inception in 1939, 70-80 per cent households in India still suffer from deficiency of calories. Swaminathan identifies maladministration, corruption (resulting in leakage at various levels) and lack of political will as the principal factors contributing to the dismal performance of the PDS. The second part of the book focuses on the structural adjustment policy recommended by the IMF and the World Bank that aims at reducing public expenditure. On important component of this adjustment policy has been a reduction in government subsidies — including food subsidy. Swaminathan recounts selected country experiences (e.g. that of Mexico, Sri Lanka, Jamaica, Zambia and Tunisia) to illustrate the implications of such an adjustment policy on the issue of food security. In all these cases, pursuing, such an adjustment programme has inevitably resulted in a reduction in the caloric intake of the poorest section of the population. And this should come as no surprise at all, because in all these third world countries, which are typically characterised by the absence of any well-defined social security available. Thus any reduction in the scope of the PDS is bound to affect the poor adversely. While it is true that the PDS has failed miserably in its task of providing food security to the poorest section of the population, the prescription that therefore the system should be abandoned altogether sounds as ludicrous as cutting off one's head in order to cure a head ache! As the author suggests, if anything, the objective should be to strengthen the PDS, not to weaken it. While there could be no argument about the fact that the PDS has failed in general to meet the basic requirements of the poorest section, and that it should be revamped in order to provide the much needed food security, one could disagree with Swaminathan on issues relating to 'what needs to be done5. Swaminathan emphasises on the universal coverage of the PDS as an instrument for providing food security. The first question that arises is, what is wrong with targeting as such? It is true that with the official poverty line so narrowly defined and with evidence of large scale malnutrition prevalent even among people above the official poverty line, the risk of 'wrong exclusion" could be quite high. But surely such risks can be eliminated by defining the target set more broadly? Some of the other costs of targeting