-Livemint.com A panel set up by PM Narendra Modi last month urged the govt to lower the number of beneficiaries to 40% from 67% New Delhi: India will not scale down its multi-billion dollar food welfare programme that promises ultra-cheap rice and wheat to most of its people despite a high-level recommendation, a top government source said on Wednesday. A panel set up by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month urged the...

-The Hindu The challenge for the Modi government is to evaluate what works in development programming before making large spending decisions Governments in India have always launched big-ticket social development programmes with ambitious goals. The Narendra Modi government is no exception. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan aims to make India open defecation-free by 2019. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana's financial inclusion programme set a target of opening 10 crore bank accounts by January...

-The Hindu Business Line   There's no Malthusian problem right now, but without sustainable farming the world will be in serious trouble Food security, a seemingly innocuous phrase, is fast becoming one of the most widely discussed topics of our time. A lot of us would associate ‘food security' as a challenge for the impoverished but it could potentially become a much more widespread problem straddling across geographic and economic divides. The issue of...

-Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies This article addresses the imperative of food security in India in the context of persistent prevalence of malnutrition despite several years of rapid growth. In particular, the article posits that the recent promulgation of the National Food Security Act in September 2014 to meet this challenge also offers an opportunity to reconfigure its food distribution system and agricultural trade policy. These two issues pose the...

-The Hindu ‘When the mother is under-nourished, children are 1.8 times more likely to be severely malnourished' The level of malnourishment is high among children whose parents migrate in search of livelihood. Inherent malnourishment in mothers, lack of food and nutrition security, feeding and dietary practices and illnesses are some of the reasons identified for high levels of malnourishment. A study ‘Understanding hunger and malnutrition among high migrant communities' conducted in south Rajasthan...