-The Deccan Herald Nearly half of all child deaths in India are caused due to premature births, making it the second leading cause in the country, said a report by international NGO Save the Children. The number one cause is pneumonia. The report added that India has the highest number of children dying of preterm births.“All newborns are vulnerable but preterm babies are acutely so,” says UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who...

Even as the debate rages on whether poverty measurement in India is accurate, a recent report on nutritional intake of Indians has come up with a chilling conclusion: two thirds of the country's population is eating less than what is required.    Even more worrying is that this trend continues despite a healthy economic growth rate over several years, and despite several mega programmes of nutrition delivery to children. Experts believe that...

-The Times of India   Delhi-based NGO, Centre for Science and Environment, has alleged that leading food manufacturers are guilty of "large scale misbranding and misinformation" by claiming that their food contained zero trans-fats even though tests showed that they have heavy doses of it. Most popular "junk foods contain very high levels of trans-fats, salts and sugar - which inevitably lead to severe ill health and diseases like obesity and diabetes," the...

National Sample Survey Organisation's report on the average calorie intake per person in Indian households points to a much higher incidence of poverty in the country than reflected in estimates of the proportion of the population below the official "poverty" line. Among the features that sully India’s “growth story” is the persistence and possible worsening of malnutrition in the country. The subsistence nutritional intake adopted when defining the official poverty line...

Rural women entrepreneurs in Rajasthan produce a nutritious food supplement as take home rations for pregnant mothers and underfed infants   There is very little that distinguishes the hamlet of Madri from the innumerable others that dot southern Rajasthan. This is a region where the Aravallis make their presence felt in gnarled hillocks, where water is scarce and where the land yields its harvests grudgingly. People here, including toddlers, know well the edge...