-The Times of India NEW DELHI: India has the highest number as well as proportion of children who are underweight and who suffer from stunting. And yet, India has no current data on the nutritional status of its population. The data available is almost a decade old since the national family health survey, which collects nutritional data, was last done in 2005-06. Global and national academicians, researchers and experts in nutrition decried...

-Down to Earth     Rural development minister shares concerns of activists at launch of Lancet series; stresses community role in fight against malnutrition India needs to be careful when it comes to agriculture-based nutrition as it opens the door for advocacy for transgenic food, said Jairam Ramesh, Union rural development minister, at the launch of the Lancet Series on Maternal and Child Nutrition. Ramesh was the chief guest at the programme on June...

-Governance Now Magazine turns down red flag raised by a group of experts; says private food manufacturers part of campaign but "harmful" soft drink makers are not Days after a group of independent experts criticised the "commercial exploitation" of malnutrition and said the private sector should be kept out of any crusade against malnutrition, the Lancet, the renowned British medical journal, has advocated just the opposite, saying private players ought to...

-The Hindu There has to be a national mission to ensure that rural homes have access to clean cooking fuel and stoves instead of the killer chulhas that are claiming the lives of large numbers of women A large section of our country's population, nearly 75 per cent of rural and 22 per cent of urban households, still uses biomass for daily cooking. An estimated 80 per cent of the residential energy...

-The Hindu New Delhi: Doctors of ayurveda and three other systems of medicine may be legally permitted to prescribe modern medicine under a controversial proposal from the Union health ministry that has angered sections of modern medics. The health ministry has asked state governments to take steps to allow state medical councils to enrol doctors with degrees in the traditional systems of medicine - ayurveda, unani, siddha, and homeopathy (AYUSH) - to...