-Down to Earth The midday meal scheme for schoolchildren is increasingly getting politicised, as the upper class elite wants to impose its own religious/food beliefs on malnourished children Most countries in the world now have some programme that provides midday meals to schoolchildren. School meals have been widely hailed for their multiple benefits — they increase enrolment and attendance, particularly of children from vulnerable groups; contribute to reduce “classroom hunger” and improve...

-Down to Earth The state also has the highest case of malnourished children (43.9 per cent) in India Imagine a dilapidated room, with no plaster on the walls and any doors, window panes — this is what an anganwadi centre (AWC) in Bihar’s Talimpur village in East Champaran district looks like. More, the building has neither a toilet, hand washing facility nor drinking water. “I have to carry chairs, utensils and...

-TheWire.in Public sector NPAs of loans issued under the scheme have increased by Rs 9,204.14 crore in just one year – from Rs 7,277.31 crore in March 2018 to Rs 16,481.45 crore in March 2019. New Delhi: The non-performing assets (NPAs) under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) doubled within one year. This information was obtained through an RTI petition filed by The Wire. In a written reply to...

-IndiaSpend.com Mumbai: As 128 children died of encephalitis in Bihar over 19 days to June 21, 2019, a new study reports that the state’s rural population prefers government investment in public healthcare over roads, jobs and cash transfers. In a survey conducted by the Brookings Institution, an American research group, in an administrative block of Bihar, 3,800 respondents--comprising the poor, less-educated and disadvantaged caste groups--were asked to make a choice: an incremental...

-The Hindu Cases of acute encephalitis syndrome have seen a spike in Muzaffarpur this year, already claiming more than a hundred lives. Jacob Koshy reports on the appalling state of health care in Bihar, even as the debate on what is causing the deaths rages on For three days, Bihari Mahato and Shyam Babu Saha’s families have shared a hospital bed. The two daily-wage labourers, who have had to give up work...