School meals ensure nutrition for millions of vulnerable children across the world. Almost 370 million children worldwide are covered by school feeding programmes. While 100 million school children benefitted from the noon meal scheme in India prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries like Brazil (48 million), China (44 million), South Africa (9 million) and Nigeria (9 million) too run similar programmes for school children. However, an estimated 39 billion in-school...
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Agri share in GDP hit 20% after 17 years: Economic Survey -Shagun Kapil
-Down to Earth Agriculture was the only sector to have clocked a positive growth at constant prices in 2020-21 The share of agriculture in gross domestic product (GDP) has reached almost 20 per cent for the first time in the last 17 years, making it the sole bright spot in GDP performance during 2020-21, according to the Economic Survey 2020-2021. The resilience of the farming community in the face of adversities made agriculture...
More »Why the new farm laws will not level the playing field -Arjun Harkauli
-Down to Earth Creation of unregulated private points of sale will only ensure that the produce continues to be sold as before — at below MSP and without any government support More than 86 per cent farmers in India own or cultivate on less than two acres of land and have little surplus to sell. They are the victims of middlemen (arthiya) at the mandis (local exchange markets) and are forced, by...
More »Extreme rains lead to more rural farmer suicides than droughts: Study -Jayashree Nandi
-Hindustan Times The international study includes data from Indian rural areas while measuring the impact of some weather events on suicides. Not only drought but flooding or even extreme rainfall leading to excess water availability is linked to higher cases of suicides among those above the age of 15 years in rural areas, a new study has suggested. In an analysis of 9,456 suicides between 2001 and 2013 in randomly selected rural areas,...
More »A crisis without villains -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express Current economic contraction is different from previous ones. Governments should borrow and spend India has never experienced negative economic growth since 1979-80, and before that in 1972-73, 1965-66 and 1957-58. All these were drought years with 1957-58 also registering a significant balance of payments (BOP) deterioration and 1979-80 witnessing the second global oil shock following the Iranian Revolution. The real GDP decline of 5-10 per cent that various agencies are...
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