-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...

-The Indian Express The Covid lockdown has set off sweeping economic distress in cities but its crucial dimension has remained untold: the silent, devastating toll on the working woman in the city suddenly out of work *A month into the lockdown after she lost her job at an energy policy institute that paid  Rs 24,000 a month, 29-year-old Reshma, a post-graduate in social work, sent her four-year-old daughter to live with her...

-The Hindu As for Milk and Milk products, only 8.7% in rural and 14.3% of the population in urban areas consumed as per the recommended intakes. Hyderabad: City-based Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute of Nutrition (ICMR-NIN) has initiated ‘Mapping of nutrition and health status – A national level participatory real-time data generation programme’ to develop a mobile-based device to be used by nutrition researchers at district level nationwide during this ongoing...

-The Tribune With APMC markets heading towards a collapse, the new set of reforms is aimed at encouraging corporatisation, with big business moving into agriculture, storage and marketing. As the experience of US/Europe shows, when unregulated markets become dominant, small farmers are the first to be pushed out of agriculture. Reiterating what former US Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz (during Ronald Reagan’s rule) had declared: “Get big or get out,” Sonny Perdue, US...

-GoI Monitor Herders faced discrimination and hardships in managing seasonal migrations Jaga Vashraam Rabari of Vrajvani village in Kutch migrates every summer with his herd of animals for eight months. Villagers in Pattan, around 300 km from home, usually invite and welcome his group but this time, they were not allowed to enter the villages due to rumours around COVID 19. “The presence of police personnel also scared us and our mobility was seriously...