KEY TRENDS     •    The biggest school feeding programmes are in India (114 million), Brazil (47 million), the United States (45 million) and China (26 million). India has a universal school meals programmes. It's school feeding programme ranks 12th among 35 lower-middle-income countries covering 79 percent of its total number of school-going children $ •    In 2010-11, the combined expenditure of the central government and the state governments/ Union Territories on the school meals...

**page** [inside]KEY TRENDS of the Union Budget 2023-24[/inside] Budget 2023-24 is the last full budget before the general election scheduled for 2024. An analysis of the budget allocations suggests that the union government has squeezed expenditure, particularly on food subsidy and the NREGA budget, while boosting Capital expenditure and giving the middle class tax benefits. Social sector activists working on Right to Food, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) came out with...

KEY TRENDS   • According to NSS 76th Round, the major source of drinking water of the household was hand pump in the rural areas and piped water into dwelling in the urban areas. About 42.9 percent of the households in the rural areas used hand pump as the principal source of drinking water and about 40.9 percent of the households in the urban areas used piped water into dwelling as the principal...

‘No mechanism to protect the poor’ IN a period characterised by all-round price rise, the issue of food security assumes extreme significance, especially for the rural and urban poor. At a time when the need for a universal public distribution system is increasingly felt, the government’s categorisation of a very small percentage of the people as being below the poverty line and eligible for rations has invited a lot of...

  Chittorgarh shows the way to affordable healthcare—generic drugs at cost price How Chittorgarh Did It * Orders passed saying doctors in government hospitals must prescribe generic medicines only * Strict checks to ensure only generic drugs are prescribed unless absolutely necessary; ad campaign too * Cooperative asked to procure generic medicines and supply them through a network of 16 stores * Tenders invited by the cooperative, most bids far lower than currently retailing. Pre-selected companies...