September 9, 1986

PRIMARY ELECTIONS TODAY New York Democrats will pick a candidate for the Senate, and Connecticut Republicans will designate a candidate for governor.

Mayor Koch's first Investigation Commissioner said yesterday that in his final weeks on the job in 1982, he assigned staff members to question a city official who was warning of corruption at the Parking Violations Bureau. ''We got a piece of information that sounded like it was really worth looking at,'' recalled the former Commissioner, Stanley Lupkin, ''and we took immediate steps to get the source of that information in to talk to.'' But Mr. Lupkin left the Investigation Department soon afterward and said he had no idea what happened to the information gathered by the staff. That question may be answered today in a report on how the Department of Investigation handled allegations of corruption at the Parking Violations Bureau long before Federal prosecutors charged that a bribery ring had been operating there for years. The report has been prepared by John S. Martin Jr., a former United States Attorney.

The surge of public concern about illegal drugs is energizing campaigns for state and Federal office around the country, according to political experts in both parties. Some politicians say they want the armed forces called out in the war on drugs. Others are calling for the death penalty for drug pushers, and in some Congressional races, candidates have challenged opponents to take a drug test. The issue, which recently moved to the top of the political agenda in Washington, is lending an emotional charge to an election year that for the most part has been short on national issues and themes. ''The fact that drugs have become an issue is testimony to the lack of issues out there,'' said Harrison Hickman, a Democratic consultant. ''Everybody seems to be using drugs to jump-start some emotion in this campaign.''

Scientific and technical advances in agriculture have yielded an era in which harvests are now outpacing population growth, resulting in unprecedented food abundance. From 1960 to 1986, the amount of land on which grain was planted grew by less than 11 percent. Yet in the same period, improvements in crops and planting practices caused grain harvests to more than double. This year, grain production will total roughly 1.66 billion metric tons, according to the Department of Agriculture. This is not to say that all people are well fed. Africa provides grim reminders that the world has not solved its hunger problem. Inefficient distribution of food and inequities in income leave many without enough to eat. But today hunger is less the result of absolute food shortages than of political situations and policy decisions.

International The detention of a U.S. reporter is an ''outrage,'' President Reagan declared. In a Denver speech, Mr. Reagan reiterated warnings that the episode was endangering American-Soviet ties. [ Page A1, Column 6. ] The Kremlin plans to link the imprisoned journalist, Nicholas S. Daniloff, to Paul M. Stombaugh, an American diplomat who was expelled from the Soviet Union 15 months ago for what Moscow said was espionage activity, according to Izvestia. [ A1:5. ]