-TheWire.in One of the most disturbing effects of the pandemic has been on the nutritional needs of the disadvantaged. The Budget needs to prioritise addressing this issue. The pandemic led disruptions of nutrition services have exacerbated India’s existing burden of undernutrition. Children did not get the mid-day meals and supplementary nutrition under the anganwadi services scheme they were registered under. Critical health services like immunisation, iron-folic acide and calcium supplementation, treatment of...

-The Indian Express Nearly three-fourth of the population depends on government facilities; of the 2.60% who suffer from chronic illnesses, most have diabetes. # Two lakh children remain “out of school”, including 64,813 due to “financial constraints”. # Over six lakh between 0-6 years are outside the net of anganwadis, which cover less than half of Delhi’s pregnant women. # Over 63% people use buses for commuting, while only 6% depend on the flagship...

-The Indian Express Recognition of care work in the public sphere could also help in unsettling the gendered and unequal division of house work and unpaid care burden. COVID-19 has given visibility to Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and anganwadi workers — women “volunteers” attached to a government scheme or employed on a mission mode — who are frontline warriors in the battle against the pandemic. In India, there are about a...

-Scroll.in Influenced by conservative vegetarian lobbies, most BJP-ruled states do not serve nutrition-laden eggs in school and anganwadi menus. In her haunting short story Shishu (Little Ones), writer Mahashweta Devi depicts the cruelty of shrunk bodies deformed by acute hunger and starvation in Adivasi hamlets, due to chronic administrative apathy. Reminiscent of this dystopian parable, the recently released National Family Health Survey 2019-’20, for the first time since the turn of the millennium...

-The Indian Express anganwadi workers, ASHAs, ANMs and anganwadi supervisors can work together with panchayat members to ensure that all children and mothers are covered with immunisation, antenatal care, maternity benefits and nutrition services On an MGNREGA worksite in Kolar, Karnataka, a male worker came up to me and said that men ought to be paid more than women. I asked him why. “Adhu yaavaagalu hange,” he replied: That was how it...