-News18.com Acclaimed journalist and Founder-Editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India, P Sainath attributes the existential crisis confronting India’s agrarian society to macro-economic policies set in motion 25 years ago. Talking to Anuradha SenGupta, Sainath makes a case for state intervention in agriculture and says the Modi government, with its shifting positions and policies like demonetisation has only aggravated the assault on agrarian livelihoods. Dismissing the buzz about imminent new initiatives...

-Frontline.in The 2018 Global Nutrition Report points to the link between income and malnutrition but falls short of examining critical factors such as enhanced public spending that determine the levels of hunger and nutrition. In 2017, fewer than one in five children, six to 24 months of age, in the world ate a minimally accepted diet. More than half of them in the same age group did not get the recommended number...

-The Telegraph Their demand for assured remunerative prices, therefore, is perfectly justified There are occasions when one suddenly becomes aware not just of the inadequacy of economic concepts for understanding reality but even of their obfuscating role. One such occasion was the recent kisan march in Delhi. The peasants have been facing distress for long, which has resulted in more than three lakh suicides over the last two-and-a-half decades, in growing indebtedness...

-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...

-The Hindu The government’s maternity benefit programme must be implemented better and comply with the Food Security Act Yashoda Devi was five months pregnant with her third child when we met her in Jharkhand in June. She was in extreme pain. The doctor had told her that she was very weak and had advised her to improve her nutritional intake. But Ms. Devi did not have money to follow the doctor’s advice. Not...