-Scroll.in The National Family Health Survey revealed gains made in the last two decades have been reversed. The key indicators of health and nutrition from the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey, conducted in 2019-’20, paint a disconcerting picture. Gains in child nutrition, reflected in the previous rounds, conducted in 2005-’06 and 2015-’16, have been reversed in several states. With the pandemic and the economic crisis, nutritional indicators are likely...

-Down to Earth Most insects are not harmful but beneficial to humans; without them, nature will lose its balance Any small creature with six jointed legs and a body divided into three parts namely head, thorax and abdomen is known as an ‘insect’. They have wings, two antennae and an exoskeleton. Ants, bees and flies are insects. ‘Entomology’ is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. There may be as many as...

-Hindustan Times Despite enhanced commitments across spheres, the government has spent less this year than it did last year Typically, when a crisis hits, the expectation is that the Centre — which has more revenue-raising abilities than states — will take the lead in preparing a fiscal road map, loosen its purse strings and raise expenditure significantly. The Covid-19 pandemic is unprecedented in its scale and impact. But this is also when...

The World Economic Outlook – a bi-annual publication of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- released in October 2020 has anticipated that the economic progress made by the countries since the 1990s to reduce poverty would be turned upside down by the COVID-19 pandemic. On top of that, economic disparity would rise too in the post-COVID world because the crisis has disproportionately impacted women, informal sector workers and people with...

-The Indian Express A complacent approach that assumes that all necessary MEAsures, including the Poshan Abhiyan, are in place and the reversal in progress is only momentary will be a sure way to inflict a debilitating, irreversible impact on children’s nutrition and their well-being. Did child undernutrition in India worsen during the COVID-19 pandemic? The consensus is: yes, most likely. But did we do well in reducing child undernutrition before the lockdown?...