-Livemint Lack of data makes it hard to draw firm conclusions from the hunger index Child malnutrition is a national shame. The loud debates about this issue have often drowned out the nuances. Millions of Indian children are malnourished because of a combination of factors ranging from poverty to poor sanitation to inadequate use of micronutrients to lack of gender rights. The latest global hunger index released by the International Food Policy...

-The Indian Express As leading economists urged the Prime Minister not to dilute the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme saying it provides economic security to millions, Union Minister for Rural Development Nitin Gadkari justified the Centre's decision to restrict the focus of the job scheme to the "most backward and needy" districts and reduce the labour-material ratio from 60:40 to 51:49. Denying any move to reduce compensation for lack of...

-The Hindu Chennai: Several leading economists have appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to continue with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act amid apprehensions that the government might restrict the programme and not offer it adequate support. In a letter to Mr. Modi, Dilip Abreu, Pranab Bardhan, V. Bhaskar, Ashwini Deshpande, Jean Dreze, Maitreesh Ghatak, Jayati Ghosh, Dilip Mookherjee, R. Nagaraj, Debraj Ray and others argued that despite numerous hurdles,...

-The Business Standard Alarm bells on rural jobs guarantee law   A group of around 30 economists from India and abroad have written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking him to ensure there is no dilution or restriction of the provisions of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). They have argued the scheme has wide-ranging social benefits, beside creation of productive assets. They have said corruption was and remains...

-United Nations The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today kicked-off a two-day meeting focusing on civil society's role in giving a voice to the hungry and how best to improve a multi-stakeholder approach to food security and nutrition policy development at national, regional and global levels. "Reaching consensus is important because it will make us move faster and because we need results in the short term," said Graziano da Silva,...