School meals ensure nutrition for millions of vulnerable children across the world. Almost 370 million children worldwide are covered by school feeding programmes. While 100 million school children benefitted from the noon meal scheme in India prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries like Brazil (48 million), China (44 million), South Africa (9 million) and Nigeria (9 million) too run similar programmes for school children. However, an estimated 39 billion in-school...
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This Hyderabad farmer has won a patent for Vitamin D-enriched rice and wheat -Prabalika M Borah
-The Hindu Chintala Venkat Reddy, who won a Padma Shri in 2020, applies natural processes and minerals to enrich rice and wheat with Vitamin D Hyderabad: Farmer Chintala Venkat Reddy from Hyderabad, Telangana was no silent observer when his doctor friends discussed Vitamin D deficiency and how it can affect the human body. As a farmer however, he wasn’t too excited by the idea of loading the body for the required Vit...
More »Most stillbirths in 2019 happened in India, estimates UN report
Commenting on the recently released fifth round of National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data for 17 states and five Union Territories (UTs) in an article published in The Indian Express (dated 6th January, 2021), Arvind Subramanian and his co-authors have stated that India has made progress on certain outcomes, including infant mortality rate (IMR), under-five mortality rate (U5MR) and neonatal mortality rate (NNMR). Relying on various rounds of NFHS data,...
More »India fares poorly in hunger index
-The Hindu Country has the highest prevalence of ‘wasted children’; even Bangladesh and Pakistan score better India has the highest prevalence of wasted children under five years in the world, which reflects acute undernutrition, according to the Global Hunger Index 2020. The situation has worsened in the 2015-19 period, when the prevalence of child wasting was 17.3%, in comparison to 2010-14, when it was 15.1%. Overall, India ranks 94 out of 107 countries...
More »Coronavirus -- The cost of opacity -R Prasad
-The Hindu It is not data, but lack of transparency and awareness that causes panic during a pandemic China’s initial cover-up of the novel coronavirus outbreak for nearly a month invited worldwide condemnation. Similarly, there were concerns when the U.S. was reported to be barring leading scientist, Anthony Fauci, from speaking publicly about the COVID-19 outbreak without approval. Dr. Fauci has been the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious...
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