-Economic and Political Weekly The public distribution system is the cornerstone of anti-poverty initiatives in India to address the issue of hunger and malnutrition, but is plagued with leakages and corruption. Though several possible reasons account for these problems, one factor that is generally overlooked is the lack of assessment of the preference of the beneficiaries in terms of product portfolio, selection, and delivery mechanisms. Through a mixed methods analysis across...

-Livemint.com Affluent states like Gujarat are failing to ensure their poorer children have a decent diet and that the richer ones are protected from lifestyle diseases India’s healthiest children live in its north-eastern states and Kerala, an analysis of a new national survey conducted by the government shows, but children in these states are also at greater risk of ‘lifestyle diseases’. However, some of the most affluent states - particularly Gujarat, Maharashtra...

-Frontline.in Optimal feeding of infants is fundamental to tackling the burden of malnutrition. The release of the Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS 2016-2018) has renewed interest in tackling malnutrition in India. The conceptual framework for child undernutrition, developed by UNICEF, recognises breastfeeding, good complementary feeding, caring and health care to minimise disease burden as immediate underlying factors that determine malnutrition in all its forms. According to the CNNS, 35 per cent of the...

-The Telegraph More than half of the country's small and marginal farmers continue to be left out of the ambit of formal finance A recent report by the Reserve Bank of India found that despite a plethora of schemes aimed at financial inclusion, only 40.9 per cent of small and marginal farmers have so far been covered by the banking system. Small and marginal farmers are defined as those with operational land...

-Livemint.com Public programs like MGNREGA are less successful in raising wages in regions characterized by historical inequality, finds new study When it was launched in 2006, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) was envisaged to boost rural economies by providing the rural poor with 100 days of guaranteed public employment and raising rural wages. But its intended benefits may have eluded those who needed them the most, a new...