-Tehelka.com Learning from the recent starvation deaths in Jharkhand, the nation’s leaders must pay heed to the necessity of ensuring food security for all Food and hunger have been important issues this past month and the news has not been welcome. First it was India’s dismal rank in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2017 released by the International Policy Research Institute rankings — 100th among 119 countries. GHI looks at undernourishment, child...

-Firstpost.com The first ever Gender Vulnerability Index (GVI), developed by Plan India, a non-governmental organisation, indicates that Goa is the safest for women and girls while Bihar ranked the lowest for their safety and security. The GVI is a composite index developed for a study for Plan India’s ‘Plan for Every Child’ – a campaign that is targetted at understanding the problems that women and girls face in difficult circumstances. The report...

-The Times of India Many members of the Niti Aayog's newly constituted Working Group on Nutrition have significant conflicts of interests. Several are representatives of international agencies, which have close ties to multinational food companies including Nestle, Hindustan Unilever, Coca Cola, Monsanto, Mars and Ajinomoto, and which have been pushing packaged therapeutic food to address malnutrition. The government has repeatedly clarified that packaged energy dense food is against India's policy on...

-The Hindu NIN centenary year fete begins with release of report on urban health Hyderabad: One-sixth of India’s adult male population smokes tobacco while nearly a third consumes alcohol, suggest latest findings from the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN). The city-based national-level institute kick-started its centenary year on Tuesday with release of a report on urban health. During Tuesday’s Foundation Day gathering, the institute felicitated its former directors, including some of the first scientists...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Women and child development (WCD) minister Maneka Gandhi today suggested spreading awareness among schoolchildren so that they can complain about sexual harassment under a central law. Maneka made the suggestions in a meeting with HRD minister Prakash Javadekar held against the backdrop of the murder of a seven-year-old boy in Gurgaon's Ryan International School. The two leaders discussed several measures, including sensitising children to file complaints under the...