-PTI New Delhi: National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Tuesday issued notice to the Kerala government over alleged deaths of several infants due to malnutrition in Attappadi area of the state. The rights panel has given six weeks time to the state government to submit a report in this regard. According to an NHRC statement, the commission has issued a notice to Chief Secretary, Kerala after taking suo motu cognisance of an...

Argumentative Indians are at it again! After sparring over the poverty line and the actual number of poor, India's renowned economists have fired up a fresh debate over the extent of malnutrition. In the earlier debate, the Planning Commission ‘reduced' poverty on paper disregarding NSSO and official committees, including the NCEUS, which determined that 77% Indians survived on less than Rs 20 a day. Columbia university economist Arvind Panagariya has...

-Down to Earth Report by children's non-profit links childhood malnourishment to educational performance, adult income and GDP Malnutrition decrease the gross domestic product (GDP) in low- and middle-income countries, says a report by international non-profit Save the Children. Malnutrition affects educational development, physical productivity and health, and also perpetuates inequalities, such as those created by caste in India, says the report. The report, Food for thought: Tackling child malnutrition to unlock potential...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: If the dictum 'you can't manage what you can't measure' is true, then the government has an unsure grip over at least half the 13 flagship schemes worth nearly Rs 2 lakh crore annually, almost 80% of the total spend on central schemes. The government is unable to efficiently collate information to assess whether some of the 13 key flagship schemes are producing the results for...

-Frontline The Central government's proposal to hand over the supply of supplementary nutrition to NGOs in the name of "community participation" is surely an invitation for private profiteering on the back of this supposedly public scheme. ENSURING safe and healthy conditions for the reproduction of the population is obviously the most fundamental requirement of any society. So the progress of a society can be determined (and indeed is routinely judged) by the...