The Director-General of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation, Dr. Jacques Diouf, announced at the Inter-Governmental Committee on World Food Security (CFS) that the combination of global food crisis and economic recession had taken the number of people affected across the world to over one billion. He described the number as “unacceptably high,” higher than in 1996 when the heads of states and governments committed themselves to reducing hunger by...
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Centre drafting new law to guarantee food security: Sonia Gandhi
The Central Government is drafting a new law that will guarantee food security to a majority of the population, Congress president Sonia Gandhi said on Tuesday. Addressing party delegates attending a daylong session of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) at the Talkatora Stadium here, Gandhi said that a new food security law would create a more efficient and effective public distribution system. "All this will, hopefully ensure an end to malnutrition, which...
More »Food Security Sans PDS: Universalization Through Targeting? by Smita Gupta
The case of the Food Security Bill gets curiouser and curiouser. What started off as a fight between universalization and targeting has ended (or so it would seem) in a complete victory in the National Advisory Council, Government of India (NAC) for targeting through universalization (if such a thing was possible), with the honourable exception of Prof Jean Dreze, who has to be commended for his ‘note of disagreement’. On...
More »India leads Commonwealth tally in underweight children by Himanshi Dhawan
India may rank second in the medals tally, but it is on top of the heap among the Commonwealth countries as the home to the highest number of underweight children. About 43% of India's children are underweight, and 7 million under fives are severely malnourished, says a new report "Commonwealth or Common Hunger", released by Save the Children, a child rights NGO. The report reveals that 64% of the world's underweight children...
More »More tribal kids dying of undernourishment by Sanjeev Kumar Patro
Are some tribal groups in Koraput and Mayurbhanj on the brink? The answer seems to be in affirmative if the rate of child mortality among the tribals is any indication. The child mortality rate of the tribals in 1997-98 was 44 but it has surged to over 62 per 1000, says the latest study by Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement in association with the World Health Organisation. The Study has conducted...
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