-TheWire.in Due to its social determinants of malnutrition, Muzaffarpur offers a case study of a “perfect storm” of risk factors. Muzaffarpur is emblematic of a hot spot for undernutrition in India. With one in two children stunted, Muzaffarpur lags India’s average by ten percentage points. One in two women is anaemic and one in three is underweight. Although most infants are breastfed and Exclusive Breastfeeding is high, other aspects of infant diets...

-TheWire.in The proposed Social Security Code, which brings together fifteen labour laws, is an opportunity to think afresh about the challenge of supporting new mothers – even in the informal economy. Maternity entitlements in the form of wage compensation during pregnancy and after delivery is an internationally accepted right for all women workers. It is also recognised as a supportive mechanism for Exclusive Breastfeeding, critical for child nutrition and well-being. The legislative...

-TheWire.in It is set law that procedures cannot impact vested substantive rights – and the right to life and correspondingly, food, is the most substantive of all rights. “After a prolonged decline, world hunger appears to be on the rise again”, claims  a report titled ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (2017)’ by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN. Nowhere is this more true than in...

-TheWire.in The national average of infants in the age group six to 23 months who receive an adequate diet is a shocking 9.6%. New Delhi: The image of a woman breastfeeding on the cover of a popular Malayalam magazine Grihalakshmi was too much for some to bear. A case was even filed in Kerala high court over it. However, the court recently came out in support of the publication, refusing to...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Poor diet and low education levels among women contribute to high levels of stunting among Indian children, nutrition researchers said on Friday after the first-ever district-level study of stunting nationwide. The study by the International Food Policy Research Institute has found that low body mass among women, low levels of education among women, and the diet of the children themselves are, in that order, the strongest factors influencing...