-The Hindu Switching to renewable energy sources in the country's midday meal programme will save millions of rupees. But only a few kitchens are doing anything about it, says the author. This is a story of facts and figures and sheer size. Of an auditorium-sized room dense with hot steam from cooking. Of seven tonnes of cooked rice and four tanker-loads of steaming sambar that needed 70 pairs of hands for cutting...
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Misplaced largesse for food security-Kathyayini Chamaraj
-Deccan Herald The very first announcement made by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on taking charge as the new CM is that the unit system under the Public Distribution System (PDS) would be scrapped and 30kg of rice at Re 1/kg would be given to each Below Poverty Line (BPL) household, irrespective of the size of the family. This is estimated to cost Rs 2,373 crore a year, almost double the estimated Rs 1,200...
More »UN report highlights benefits of school meal programmes in crisis settings
-The United Nations A United Nations report released today stresses the importance of providing meals for schoolchildren, particularly in times of crisis, and notes that this is still lacking in many developing countries. "School feeding assures that where quality education is available, children are able to take advantage of the opportunity to learn," said the Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), Ertharin Cousin. "It's an investment that pays off in the...
More »Privatising the ICDS?-Jayati Ghosh
-Frontline The Central government's proposal to hand over the supply of supplementary nutrition to NGOs in the name of "community participation" is surely an invitation for private profiteering on the back of this supposedly public scheme. ENSURING safe and healthy conditions for the reproduction of the population is obviously the most fundamental requirement of any society. So the progress of a society can be determined (and indeed is routinely judged) by the...
More »An Abstract Hunger- Anuradha Raman
-Outlook A govt in credibility crisis wants to see the food security bill through The UPA-II government's flagship programme, the Food Security Bill, which comes with a neat price tag of Rs 1.23 lakh crore, holds the promise of eradicating hunger. If passed, the bill, it is expected, will ensure foodgrain to 67 per cent of the poor. Surely, with elections round the corner, no political party can risk opposing it....
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