-IPS News SUNDARBANS: November is the cruelest month for landless families in the Indian Sundarbans, the largest single block of tidal mangrove forest in the world lying primarily in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. There is little agricultural wage-work to be found, and the village moneylender's loan remains unpaid, its interest mounting. The paddy harvest is a month away, pushing rice prices to an annual high. For those like Namita Bera,...

There is some good news amid gloom! Preliminary findings of a survey in India as quoted by the Global Nutrition Report 2014 shows that prevalence of malnutrition among children aged below 5 years has come down between 2005-06 and 2013-14, even though we have a long way to go. (See links and bullet points below). The survey on malnutrition and Hunger, called the Rapid Survey on Children (RSOC), was conducted after...

-Livemint The revival of PDS is a reality but that alone does not explain the decline in child malnutrition rates Noting the wide disparities in living standards between different countries of the world, Nobel-winning macroeconomist R.E. Lucas commented in a widely cited research paper that one could not but help looking at such figures without thinking of them as possibilities. "Is there some action a government of India could take that would lead...

-Livemint The statistics showed that the proportion of underweight children had fallen 12.8 percentage points since 2005 to 30.7% In its latest Global Hunger Index report released last month, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) published new statistics on India's child malnutrition rates, which showed a dramatic decline in the proportion of underweight children. The statistics, based on a survey conducted by the ministry of women and child development and the...

-Livemint Maharashtra is reducing malnutrition. It may have lessons for other states Over the past month, there has been much debate about what resulted in India's improved ranking in the Global Hunger Index (GHI). There is little clarity in terms of data and policies about how India achieved significant improvements in child nutrition over the past decade. The GHI report by the International Food Policy Research Institute did not give a clear...