-The Hindu After a long and painful period of neglect, India promises to devote attention to the issue of preparing all children for primary schooling. The draft National Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) policy aims to end the "current laissez faire situation" that has led to the mushrooming of expensive crèches, play schools, nursery schools and so on that adhere to no particular standard. On the other hand, there is...

-The United Nations Although global food prices have recently stabilized, they are expected to remain volatile over the next few years, the head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today, as a ministerial meeting on global food prices kicked off in Rome. FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva told the meeting, which coincided with the opening of the Committee on World Food Security, that this year's session was...

-PTI NEW DELHI: Narendra Modi's government in Gujarat has countered the CAG's opinion that 66 per cent of children in the state are underweight and claimed that this figure has declined to less than 26 per cent in 2013 due to various steps taken by the state dispensation. "As a result of various nutrition interventions undertaken by government of Gujarat, the percentage of underweight children decreased from 73.04 per cent in March,...

-The Hindu ‘1.87 crore people were deprived of the benefits of ICDS' Gandhinagar: Though Chief Minister Narendra Modi has been waxing eloquent about the Gujarat model of development, the latest report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India as well as the State government's own admission speak of malnourished and underweight children in the State. According to the government's own figures, produced by Women and Child Development Minister Vasuben Trivedi in...

-Down to Earth   This defies logic. Despite rapid economic growth, India has often been placed below sub-Saharan African countries that have very high number of malnourished children. But the government has no data to clarify its position. In the first week of September, Parliament’s Committee on Estimates criticised the government, saying: “The committee is surprised to note that in the modern era of Information and Technology, there is no recent official...