-The Hindu India must convert its young population to a competitive advantage, and nutrition and health are foundational to that outcome. The “Global Nutrition Report 2016” once again demonstrates India’s slow overall progress in addressing chronic malnutrition, manifest in stunting (low weight for age), wasting (low weight for height), micronutrient deficiencies and over-weight. Our track record in reducing the proportion of undernourished children over the past decade has been modest at best,...
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Fact Check: Understanding the data on flowing milk, booming agricultural output -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express Agriculture Ministry’s harvest estimates don’t square with drought conditions in several cases, raise serious questions of credibility. We have had two consecutive drought years, yet India’s milk production, according to the Agriculture Ministry, has risen from 137.69 million tonnes (mt) in 2013-14 to 146.31 mt in 2014-15 and 160.35 mt in 2015-16. Never before has the country’s milk output grown at these rates — that too, in the face...
More »From Plate to Plough: With humility, on farmer income -Ashok Gulati & Shweta Saini
-The Indian Express NDA’s existing agricultural policies are ill-equipped to achieve the stated goal of doubling them in five years. As the Narendra Modi government completed two years in office, almost each arm of government issued hordes of advertisements celebrating achievements and delineating policies and programmes that were transforming India. The ministry of agriculture and farmers’ welfare came out with a big picture of PM Modi, spelling out 10 points reflecting the...
More »The case for going universal -Diane Coffey & Payal Hathi
-The Hindu Maternity entitlements are an important policy tool for encouraging better maternal health. This is why we need to do away with conditionality in cash transfer schemes Since the National Food Security Act (NFSA) was passed in 2013, policy circles have been buzzing with talk of reforms in the public distribution system (PDS). Less well appreciated is the NFSA’s potential to call attention to, and help address, poor maternal nutrition — an aspect...
More »Who said inflation is down? -Rajalakshmi Nirmal
-The Hindu Business Line Though the overall price trend is declining, for many items of daily consumption, especially food, it has risen Wholesale and consumer price indices are trending lower, but this has not brought relief to the common man. In May, the wholesale price index recorded negative growth for the seventh consecutive month. The consumer price index edged marginally higher in May to 5.01 per cent, from 4.87 per cent a...
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