-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The National Monitoring Committee for midday meal (MDM) scheme that met on Tuesday was told there are areas of serious concerns with the flagship programme. For instance, it was pointed out there is unavailability of eating plates in most of the schools. Report by various monitoring institutions (MIs) also said there is a delay in delivering cooking costs from state to school, cook-cum-helpers were getting irregular...

-Economic and Political Weekly Direct benefi t transfers in the form of cash cannot replace the supply of food through the public distribution system. Though it is claimed otherwise, DBT does not address the problems of identifying the poor ("targeting") and DBT in place of the PDS will expose the vulnerable to additional price fluctuation. Further, if the PDS is dismantled, there will also be no need or incentive for procurement...

-The Times of India RANCHI: Chief minister Raghubar Das on Friday said that the government will appoint 12,000 women 'poshan sakhis' (nutrition companions) contract workers to implement and monitor various government schemes aimed at tackling the problem of malnutrition in schools. Das said that under the new scheme, three lakh students covering 40,000 schools in the state would benefit. The announcement while inaugurating additional nourishment scheme which is an extension of the...

-Business Standard The Government accords priority to the issue of nutrition, particularly in respect of children, adolescent and women of poorer sections of the society including tribal population and has been implementing several schemes/programmes of various Ministries/Departments through State Governments/UTs. These schemes, interalia, include Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) of Ministry of Women and Child Development, National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Mid Day Meals...

The India Country Report 2015 on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) comes at a time when the Union Budget 2015-16 allegedly cut expenditure on several social sector schemes and programmes. This year's MDG country report says that India will fail to achieve two important targets pertaining to reducing hunger and maternal mortality by 2015, among others. Released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), the report says that India is...