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...

-The Indian Express Investment in human capital, science and research remains the Achilles heel of Indian policy. The budget allocation for agriculture research and education has constantly declined from 0.31 per cent of the gross value added of agriculture and allied activities in 2011-12 to 0.24 per cent now Seven years of low crude prices, five years of above normal monsoon topped by good agriculture production, and everything looked positive for a...

-Counterview.net Even as calling Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s budget “historic”, top international NGO Oxfam, pointing towards “some gaps” in it, “especially while addressing inequalities on the lines of caste, class, gender and occupation”, has regretted that the budget “does not address the urgent spending needs in the social sector, especially in health and education.” In a statement, Oxfam India quotes CEO stating that “the Union Budget 2021 has failed to address inequality...

-The Indian Express Nearly three-fourth of the population depends on government facilities; of the 2.60% who suffer from chronic illnesses, most have diabetes. # Two lakh children remain “out of school”, including 64,813 due to “financial constraints”. # Over six lakh between 0-6 years are outside the net of anganwadis, which cover less than half of Delhi’s pregnant women. # Over 63% people use buses for commuting, while only 6% depend on the flagship...

-Down to Earth Social, cultural stigmas reasons for lack of improvement The present-day education system has come a long way and age-old traditions have undergone a drastic change. One of the biggest achievements of India was the increase in literacy rate to 74.04 per cent in 2010-11 from 18.3 per cent in 1950-51. The country has been making great strides in educating children; at the time of Independence, India was largely illiterate (nine...