As of 2006, over 43% of Indian children under five were malnourished, a rate that has barely budged since the early 1990s. This gives India the dubious distinction of having the highest percentage of malnourished children in the world. There are at least 53 poorer countries with lower malnutrition rates, including Bangladesh, Nepal, Haiti and several African countries. At Independence, India was poor, so it wasn’t thought possible to guarantee...

Kerala and Tamil Nadu with the lowest calorie consumption seem to show better health outcome indicators This report, a joint initiative by the MS Swaminathan Research Foundation — an institution with a remarkable long term commitment to issues related to food security — and the United Nations World Food Programme, should serve as an excellent hand book on urban food insecurity. Aside from providing all the relevant information in a consolidated...

This book discusses a new poverty agenda for Asia and the role of social policies in economic transformation and reducing poverty. The poverty-reduction agenda is well known. So is the debate over poverty. No one disputes the fact that poverty of income (or expenditure, as countries such as India do not collect household data on income) is an imperfect measure of poverty, as there are non-income dimensions, too. Consequently, we...

The budget is more concerned about the consumer than the grower A LOOMING food crisis in the world and high food inflation rates at home made Pranab Mukherjee’s proposals to boost agriculture in his 2011 budget more keenly watched than usual. These are factors that clearly weighed with the finance minister who repeatedly said that his principal concern this year has been the continuing high food prices. The squeeze on the...

Asit Tripathy, Chairman of Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) has pointed out that Indian states need to promote contract farming to ensure that farmers get remunerative prices and assured market for their produce apart from getting freed from the clutches of middlemen. India's national agricultural policy also envisages private participation through contract farming and land leasing arrangements to allow accelerated technology transfer, capital inflow and assured market...