VISHAL, the son of a farm labourer in the west Indian state of Maharashtra, is almost four. He should weigh around 16kg (35lb). But scooping him up from the floor costs his nursery teacher, a frail woman in a faded sari, little effort. She slips Vishal’s scrawny legs through two holes cut in the corners of a cloth sack, which she hooks to a weighing scale. The needle stops at...

Inefficiency, the global financial meltdown and rising food prices have conspired to reverse progress made on poverty and hunger Head out of Delhi, across the fetid Yamuna river, with the tourist sites behind you and the northern Indian plains in front of you. Go past the new, luxury flats built for the Commonwealth Games, turn right and follow the lines of the new metro and then plunge left, avoiding the chaotic...

KEY TRENDS   • Maternal Mortality Ratio for India was 370 in 2000, 286 in 2005, 210 in 2010, 158 in 2015 and 145 in 2017. Therefore, the MMRatio for the country decreased by almost 61 percent between 2000 and 2017 *14    • As per the NSS 71st round, among rural females aged 5-29 years, the main reasons for dropping out/ discontinuance were: engagement in domestic activities, not interested in education, financial constraints and marriage. Among rural males aged...

We need to make sure nutrition is not easily neglected. And that means putting pressure on leaders throughout society to focus on nutrition. I have just finished a trip to India to help contribute to the efforts on ending malnutrition. The politicians and media were talking about the sparkling new economic growth and development figures. There was no such attention given to the “other” growth and development figures — those related...

Anganwadi workers, women’s self-help groupsand accredited social health activists from across the state gathered at the Azad Maidan on Wednesday to protest against the government’s decision of distributing instant packaged food in anganwadis as supplementary nutrition. “Anganwadis are supposed to provide fresh, nutritious food to pregnant women and children till six years of age. The government has instead started providing ready-to-eat food packets to them,” said Sonya Gill, president, all India...