-The Hindu India must convert its young population to a competitive advantage, and nutrition and health are foundational to that outcome. The “Global Nutrition Report 2016” once again demonstrates India’s slow overall progress in addressing chronic malnutrition, manifest in stunting (low weight for age), wasting (low weight for height), micronutrient deficiencies and over-weight. Our track record in reducing the proportion of undernourished children over the past decade has been modest at best,...

Two back-to-back reports that shed light on the status of MGNREGA implementation in the country, have been released recently from the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD). A review of MGNREGA implementation in 8 different states of India by a team of experts during the month of May this year reveals that in many of the drought affected districts, the Gram Panchayats have no work to offer under the programme. (Please click...

-The Financial Express The rural development ministry has identified unrealistic planning at gram panchayat level, lack of quality assets created, inadequate capacity of functionaries, inadequate technical staff, lack of monitoring and delay in wage payment, as factors adversely impacting the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). The report on performance, initiatives and strategies (FY15-16 and FY16-17) for MGNREGA released by the rural development ministry also identified issues...

-The Indian Express Also, the lack of co-ordination between health and Women and Child Development (WCD) departments has also been highlighted in the report. Ahmedabad: WITH OVER 1.45 lakh children under the age of six in Gujarat identified with the Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM), the state fails to identify any specific targets in their mission statements to overcome malnutrition, reveals the latest edition of Global Nutrition Report (GNR). Also, the lack...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Maneka Gandhi today unveiled a new tool to fight malnutrition - a mobile app. In a first of its kind effort, the Union ministry for women and child development unveiled the application that would chart the nutrition status of every child under the Integrated Child Development Scheme and alert health workers through colour-coded graphs. Apart from day-to-day tracking of each child, the app - developed in collaboration with the...