-Scroll.in Full-day, quality childcare can make a crucial difference in India’s fight against malnutrition, and can possibly enhance incomes of working women. Savitaben is a tobacco worker in Rasnol village, Gujarat. She has two young children under five years of age, and every morning she leaves them in a crèche run by the Self-Employed Women’s Association or SEWA, a trade union of over 15 lakh poor, self-employed women workers. The children are...

-VillageSquare.in Women trained as poshan sakhis, or nutrition friends, advice and help rural women, particularly expectant and lactating mothers, to eat nutritious food and overcome anemia and underweight deliveries Koraput (Odisha): Swapnarani (21), an expectant mother, finishes her household work fast to attend the monthly maitri baithak at her village Bhutanagar in Badakeranga panchayat of Odisha’s Koraput district. Maitri baithak, or friendship meeting, provides space for women to discuss issues that concern...

-The Indian Express By all accounts, 2018 has been a year of deep losses for Maharashtra’s onion growers. IT HAS been a couple of weeks since Sanjay Balkrishna Sathe, 44, sent Prime Minister Narendra Modi an online money order of Rs 1,064 — the proceeds from the sale of 750 kg of his “top quality” onions at the Niphad marketplace in Nashik, home to half of India’s onion crop. The money...

-The Hindu The national framework to improve nutrition for children must be upgraded on priority The health, longevity and well-being of Indians has improved since Independence, and the high levels of economic growth over the past two-and-half-decades have made more funds available to spend on the social sector. Yet, the reality is that a third of the world’s stunted children under five — an estimated 46.6 million who have low height for...

-Livemint.com The recent Chhath festival in Bihar saw a visible thinning of the workforce in Kerala, clearly the ground zero of India’s mass labour movement Eroor (Ernakulam): Oh, I miss Vicky!,” Ravi says, in Malayalam, as he rolls up his sleeves. He is walking quickly back to his house from a protest—that quintessential Kerala activity. Breathing in the pungent chemicals of Kochi’s industrial belt in Eroor as he walks, Ravi (who did...