-The Hindu Lower stunting among children with mothers who had access to free school lunches, shows data from 1993-2016. Girls who had access to the free lunches provided at government schools, had children with a higher height-to-age ratio than those who did not, says a new study on the inter-generational benefits of India’s Midday meal scheme published in Nature Communications this week. Using nationally representative data on cohorts of mothers and their children...

The National Food Security Act 2013 guarantees maternity benefit to the tune of Rs. 6,000/- per child by the Central Government for pregnant women and lactating mothers, barring those who are already availing such benefits while being in regular employment with the Central Government or State Governments or Public Sector Undertakings or under other laws. The NFSA 2013 also legally guarantees free meals for every pregnant woman and lactating mother...

School meals ensure nutrition for millions of vulnerable children across the world. Almost 370 million children worldwide are covered by school feeding programmes. While 100 million school children benefitted from the noon meal scheme in India prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries like Brazil (48 million), China (44 million), South Africa (9 million) and Nigeria (9 million) too run similar programmes for school children. However, an estimated 39 billion in-school...

-Press released by Right to Food Campaign dated 3rd February, 2021 In its press release dated 3rd February, 2021, Right to Food Campaign has stated that the Union Budget 2021-22 reduced financial allocations for crucial social security schemes such as the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), midday meals, maternity entitlements, and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). Please click here to access the press release. Kindly click here, here, here...

-Down to Earth UN agencies urged governments to prioritise school reopening More than 39 billion in-school meals were missed globally during the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic due to school closures, according to a new UNICEF report. Since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly 370 million children have not been receiving a school meal in 150 countries, said the report by UNICEF Office of Research and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)...