-Outlook Shillong: More than 18 years after it was rolled out in Meghalaya, the mid-day meal scheme has failed to keep children in schools or provide dietary nutrition - the two objectives of the centrally-sponsored scheme. A survey of the schools in the state where the scheme was launched in 1995 discovered that over 50 per cent children still suffered from stunted growth and that the food served is mostly deficient in...

A new report by National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) reveals that despite the nutritional value of millets, otherwise known as coarse cereals*, there has been a drastic reduction in the area under its cultivation from 36.34 million hectares in 1955-56 to 18.6 million hectares in 2011-12 thanks to the wrong agricultural and price policies adopted by the Government (see table 1, and the links below). Based on previous National...

-The Hindu Business Line Hyderabad: Legumes, a crop of poor and small farmers, have got a lending hand from scientists. Farmers will soon be able to get climate change ready chickpea (gram) varieties that can withstand extreme weather conditions. Scientists at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (Icrisat) have identified 40 lines of germplasm of chickpea with resistance to drought, high temperature and salinity. They had screened about 211 lines...

-National Academy of Agricultural Sciences After almost 67 years of Independence, malnutrition continues to plague India. Even while vast segments of resource-poor people suffer from undernutrition, particularly micronutrient deficiencies (hidden hunger), there is a growing incidence of obesity and chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer etc. Both the ends of this grim spectrum are at least partly due to changing food habits, loss of millets from the diet being one...

-The Hindu Preparation of weaning food not consistent; mix not easily digestible PUDUCHERRY: For the past few years, young children have been given weaning food through Integrated Child Development Scheme to help improve their nutrition. These weaning supplements are provided in the form of powder that is rolled into a ‘laddoo' and given to children. Unfortunately, despite being provided these supplements, many children in Puducherry refuse to eat the food. In both Tamil...