Adding to the debate over celebrity economists blaming India’s malnutrition and stunting vis-à-vis Sub Saharan Africa on genetic differences, Dean Spears, a public health expert and a visiting fellow at Delhi School of Economics, offers evidence connecting our poor sanitation and open defecation with high morbidity and malnutrition. (see both links below). In an evidence-based paper titled Policy Lessons from Implementing India’s Total Sanitation Campaign (2012), based on the review...

-Outlook Social indices topper Kerala just can't stop the baby deaths in its malnutrition-hit tribal Attapady belt Under the thick canopy of a peepal tree, beside the road that winds to Pallur Ooru in Attapady in the Western Ghats, is a small tribal burial ground. There are no tombstones to mark the graves and on closer look one sees tiny mounds where the mud has been disturbed. In a quiet corner,...

-The Hindu Social audits of the mid-day meal scheme by parents can ensure that the world's largest intervention against hunger that also helps keep children in school need not suffer setbacks like the Bihar tragedy This week, 23 children lost their lives after having a mid-day meal served at a school in Bihar's Saran district. Preliminary reports suggest that the school lacked a storage facility for foodgrain which led to contamination and...

-Outlook New Delhi: Ahead of the monsoon season, when threat of water-borne diseases is at its peak, 44 per cent of water samples taken from Sadar Paharganj area were found to be unfit for drinking, while the figure was 43 per cent for Civil Line zone, according to a report. According to the report of North Delhi Municipal Corporation, 225 of 667 samples failed to pass the potability test in Narela zone,...

-The Indian Express The Central Public Works Department (CPWD) on Thursday transferred two officials in charge of the NCERT campus, a week after contaminated water was blamed for the death of two persons. Several others had to be hospitalised. While the CPWD admitted to being at fault partially, sources in the organisation maintained that the Delhi Jal Board (DJB) was to blamed as well. According to the CPWD, an assistant engineer and...