We see malnutrition as a burden on our conscience, and on our exchequer. We also know it is a daunting task to get rid of child malnutrition. But do we know about the economic benefits on the other side? A new FAO report tells us that India can increase its national income by a massive US$ 28 billion by eliminating child malnutrition. Now that is serious economic gain so read...

Civil society groups on Tuesday came out strongly against the Centre’s draft National Food Security Bill, which has not incorporated the National Advisory Council’s suggestion for providing maternity entitlements to about 15 crore women in the informal (non-Government) sector, as in the Central Government, thereby denying food security (breast feeding) to infants.  Similarly, the current legal guarantee of 'hot cooked meals' for children attending anganwadis has been diluted by providing the...

-The Hindu   The Finance Ministry had approved the changes in the draft National Food Security Bill that were incorporated after taking the views of the Department of Women and Child Development as well as those posted on the Food Ministry's website, Minister of State for Food and Public Distribution K.V. Thomas said on Thursday. The Ministry would soon bring to the Cabinet a revised draft after incorporating the comments of the Ministries...

A life bound to a wheelchair, with speech inability and two heart attacks, would not seem like much of a life. But doctor Sharadkumar Dicksheet proved it wrong. In over four decades, Dicksheet performed over 2.5 lakh facial reconstructive surgeries for free. Until this winter, that is. He died on November 14 in Brooklyn, US. He was 81. Dicksheet has two daughters and a son from two marriages, neither of which lasted. What...

-PTI   Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the head of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on Food, has approved key changes in the proposed National Food Security Bill and the revised draft will be placed before Cabinet soon. ”Yesterday evening, the Finance Minister has given final clearance to the draft Food Bill. It will be soon placed before Cabinet,” told Food Minister K V Thomas. The key changes proposed in the Bill have been...