This set of briefs presents the major debates emerged during the development and adoption of the India’s National Food Security Act (2013), which legally binds national and state governments to extend far-reaching social protection to the country’s population. It includes discussions on critical issues that different actors, who wish to develop food security and social protection strategies in their countries, will certainly have to deal with and provides a useful instrument to be used in study groups and strategy planning workshops. The Indian case is not presented either as a model to be emulated by other countries nor as a prescription, but rather as a reference and a fit case for a global discussion about state food provisioning as part of a larger framework of social protection.