-The New Indian Express Yet another damning report on malnutrition among children in urban slums has made headlines. A study conducted by the Indian NGO Child Rights and You on early childhood has revealed that children living in slums suffer from malnutrition, resulting in underweight and stunted growth. Though the numbers vary from one city to another, there’s very little to cheer about. The percentage of underweight children ranged from 33...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: A medical panel has produced India's first-ever rule book to tackle widespread vitamin D deficiency that prescribes regular, possibly lifelong, doses to even healthy adults but warns that doctors may be over-testing and over-prescribing the drug. An expert group set by the Endocrine Society of India, an association of specialists, has prescribed vitamin D to healthy adults, adolescents, infants and all Pregnant Women after 12 weeks of gestation...

-The Hindu Forty years after being established with a mandate to generate data on the nutritional status of socially vulnerable groups, the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB) has been shut down by the Union Health Ministry. The bureau, under the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), had been critical in informing the government’s poverty alleviation interventions with periodic assessments of nutrient deficiency among tribal communities, Pregnant Women, adolescents and “at-risk” elderly population...

-The Times of India CHENNAI: More than seven out of ten Indians lack in vitamins, and most of them suffer from vitamin D deficiency that is linked to Alzheimer's disease, prostate cancer, erectile dysfunction and schizophrenia. Chennai-based Metropolis Healthcare studied 14,96,683 samples over three years and found an increasing trend of deficiency in vitamin D, vitamin B12 and vitamin B9 (Folic Acid) among all age groups of Indians. The samples tested across four...

-Livemint.com There is a need to evaluate whether implementing a cash transfer programme has become the end On 4 September, the ministry of women and child development (MWCD) was issued a notice by the Supreme Court questioning its failure to implement the maternal cash entitlement guaranteed in the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA). Section 4 of the NFSA entitles all pregnant and lactating women to Rs. 6,000, if they are...