-Reuters LONDON: Some 165 million children worldwide are stunted by malnutrition as babies and face a future of ill health, poor education, low earnings and poverty, the head of the United Nations children's fund said on Friday. Anthony Lake, executive director of Unicef, told Reuters the problem of malnutrition is vastly under-appreciated, largely because poor nutrition is often mistaken for a lack of food. In reality, he said, malnutrition and its irreversible health...

-The Economic Times KOLKATA: Prices of vegetables and spices have dropped up to 20% in the past month and are likely to remain low as higher output along with the brisk start to the monsoon has calmed the market. The drop in vegetable prices, on top of the global fall in various commodities from aluminium to Zinc, is good news for policymakers as stubbornly high inflation has hindered moves to cut interest...

-The Hindu Despite government programmes, nutrition supplements for women and children are not to be found in Jharkhand’s villages More than two years after she gave birth to her youngest daughter, Shanti Oraon, an adivasi farmer in Bhandara village, Khunti district has been unable to resume working in the fields. “She has breathing trouble, and could not start walking even after she turned two and a half years old. I must stay...

-The Hindu Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s budget for 2013-14 will be remembered not only for its strategies to stimulate economic growth and control fiscal deficit, but also for the importance given to the needs of the underprivileged sections of our society. In the field of agriculture, he has adopted the following three pronged strategy: 1. Defend the gains already made in the original green revolution areas like Punjab and Haryana: For this purpose...

-io9.com Wheat and grain-based foods are all around us. We love our bagels, pasta, bread, and breakfast cereals. For many, the thought of eliminating these staples from our diets seems wholly unreasonable, if not ludicrous. But a growing number of people are switching to wheat-free diets — and for very good reason. As science is increasingly showing, eating wheat increases the potential for a surprising number of health problems. Here's why...