-IndiaSpend.com Beed and Washim (Maharashtra): You would not think there was a worsening farm crisis in India’s second-largest agricultural economy if you met Jairam Jadhav in the central region of Marathwada, one of the areas facing a drought that equals the worst in a century. Jadhav, 35, is a happy man. Despite two seasons of truant rains, his well has enough water to supply his 20-acres of sugarcane, cotton and pigeon pea...

-Economic and Political Weekly Agriculture cannot be revived without a different approach to water, soil, crops and research. For the second year in succession, rainfall in the monsoon season has been less than normal. As many as 302 out of the 640 districts in the country have been declared drought-hit and the impact of the drought is the severest in nine major states of south, central and east India. It is striking...

-Scroll.in Institutions that provide cheap or free meals are not mere populism &NDAsh; they are vital for the food security of people on the margins. My first experience of a “community kitchen” was in Brazil where we were taken to try out a meal at the Popular Restaurant in Lauros de Freitas. The serpentine queue outside it surprising initially, seemed entirely unexceptional once we had been served: for one real (approximately Rs...

-The Hindu As of 2005-06, India had 62 million stunted children, accounting for a third of the world’s burden of stunting. Indian states have seen some improvements in child nutrition over the last decade, the first official data in over a decade shows, but over one in three children is still stunted, and over one in five underweight. As of 2005-6, India had 62 million stunted children, accounting for a third of the...

-GovernanceNow.com Hamlets in four states show how community efforts can combat malnutrition among children. Funds for the initiative, however, are drying up As the trees and bushes give way to Bada Doomartoli, a hamlet of Singhpur village in Nagri block of Ranchi, one can see a bunch of children running around playfully in the veraNDAh of the first house. Their screeching can be heard from a distance. The younger children sit...