-IndiaSpend.com The guidelines of the restructured scheme, Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0, are still being worked out and POSHAN 2.0 has not yet been approved, an RTI response revealed New Delhi: In 2021, the government consolidated several programmes for children, adolescent girls and creches, supplementary nutrition and POSHAN (Prime Minister's Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nourishment) into an umbrella programme called Saksham Anganwadi and POSHAN 2.0. But there is confusion over the objectives...

-Down to Earth Ganjam, known to be severely affected by child marriages, is Odisha’s first district to be declared child marriage free Odisha’s Ganjam district was declared child marriage-free January 3, 2022, district collector Vijay Amruta Kulange said. “We decided to declare the district free of child marriage after collecting detailed information about all weddings that took place in 2020 and 2021,” Kulange said at an event organised at the district headquarters. The district...

-The Hindu It is high time that the process of monitoring nutrition got importance over survey outcomes The National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 shows negligible gains in nutritional outcomes among under-five children. There has been tardy progress in reducing undernutrition, wasting and stunting. It is a national shame that even now, 35.5% of under-five children are stunted and 19.3% are wasted. Childhood anaemia has worsened from NFHS-4. Anaemia among adolescent girls and...

-The Hindu COVID-19 or otherwise, educational institutions need to ensure that schoolchildren are nurtured and nourished With COVID-19 cases reducing in the country, several establishments, including schools, are opening again. While the reopening of all schools is on the anvil, the festive season ahead and the fact that children are not yet in the ambit of the vaccination drive are causing apprehension. We, as a society, must focus on the nutrition of...

-Down to Earth The children, mostly girls, were rescued from a railway station  Child trafficking has seen a spurt in Odisha — especially in tribal-dominated districts of the state — following the resumption of train services amid the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.  At least 20 adolescents, mostly girls (18) aged 15-17, have been rescued by activists from non-profit Childline Foundation of India (CFI), from Berhampur railway station in Ganjam district from July...