It will be a mistake to assume that the food security bill, in its present form, will necessarily and sharply reduce India’s embarrassingly high rates of child malnutrition. Satiating hunger and providing nutrients that are essential for healthy growth and fitness are not quite the same thing, a fact highlighted by the leading medical journal Lancet in a recent research paper. The article says the prevalence of anaemia in India...

-The United Nations   The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) today launched a web-based tool that gives governments and health-care providers access to clear guidance on how to scale up life-saving nutrition interventions to combat all forms of malnutrition. The WHO e-Library of Evidence for Nutrition Actions (eLENA), launched at the beginning of a three-day Asian regional meeting on nutrition in Colombo, Sri Lanka, is designed to help governments overcome one...

Iodine deficiency disorders have long been a major health problem in the developing world. India has accepted iodine deficiency as a national public health problem. Micronutrient India (MI), a not-for-profit organization, is working with the government to ensure India achieves 100% Universal Salt Iodisation by 2012. Melanie Galvin , regional director, Asia, MI, spoke to Meenakshi Kumar : What does Micronutrient India do? Micronutrient India works in the production area of iodised...

Policies aiming to combat malnutrition are ignoring an entire generation of women whose overall health has a direct bearing on children’s growth, say advocacy groups and researchers Cradling a frail son on her hip and with a plastic bag stuffed with clothes in one hand, Tara Jadam walked into the rehabilitation centre inside the district hospital here to spend the next two weeks. On a hot afternoon, she has walked several miles...

One of the least talked about issues in the debate on India's demographic dividend is child malnutrition. India is home to about a third of the world's underweight and stunted children under the age of 5. A child under 5 is almost twice as likely to be chronically underweight in India as in sub-Saharan Africa. Sadly, the impressive economic growth of the past decade has made only a modest dent into...