-The Indian Express The need of the hour is to expand distribution under the PDS. Failing that, the country is heading towards another round of wasteful stock accumulation even as poor people struggle to feed their families. The paradox of “hunger amidst plenty” has haunted India for a long time and shows no sign of going away. On the contrary, it reached a new plane in 2020. On the one hand, the...

-The Indian Express Jean Dreze writes: Surjit Bhalla picks on data, but fails to debunk evidence of alarming trends in child nutrition. I must thank Surjit Bhalla (‘Ideology trumps evidence’, IE December 26) for confirming the main point of an earlier article of mine (‘Give children weight’, IE December 17) — namely, that child undernutrition tends to be taken lightly in the corridors of power. His intention, of course, was the opposite...

The World Economic Outlook – a bi-annual publication of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- released in October 2020 has anticipated that the economic progress made by the countries since the 1990s to reduce poverty would be turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of that, economic disparity would rise too in the post-COVID world because the crisis has disproportionately impacted women, informal sector workers and people with...

Preliminary findings of a survey among 3,994 respondents from 11 states reveal that most vulnerable households and communities, such as SCs, STs, OBCs, PVTGs, slum dwellers, daily wage labourers, farmers, single women headed households, etc. continue to witness depressed incomes during September-October in comparison to their income levels prior to the lockdown. The face-to-face survey conducted by the Right to Food Campaign and Center for Equity Studies (instead of telephonic...

-The Indian Express All indications show that an economic revival will take some time — support is required during this period to at least prevent starvation. The effects of the lockdown and the resultant economic crisis continue to disproportionately impact the poor and informal sector workers. Since the lockdown, the Government of India (GoI) has announced relief packages under the Pradhan Mantri Gareeb Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) and Atmanirbhar Bharat. However, numerous studies...