-The New Indian Express   There are no easy solutions to some of India's chronic problems, which need to be tackled in a holistic, multi-dimensional manner. However, the United Progressive Alliance government does not think so. It has hit upon the idea of enacting a food security law in the mistaken belief that it will address the problems of poverty and hunger. An article in the pre-eminent medical journal, The Lancet, should...

-Zee Research Group, Delhi   A new global study featuring India among other nations has apprehended that malnourished children fared poorly at studies. This study has huge bearing for India as about 40 per cent of its children are malnourished. The Save the Children's ‘Food for Thought2013' report found that chronically malnourished children are 20 per cent less literate than those with a healthier diet, and less able to read or write a simple...

Argumentative Indians are at it again! After sparring over the poverty line and the actual number of poor, India's renowned economists have fired up a fresh debate over the extent of malnutrition. In the earlier debate, the Planning Commission ‘reduced' poverty on paper disregarding NSSO and official committees, including the NCEUS, which determined that 77% Indians survived on less than Rs 20 a day. Columbia university economist Arvind Panagariya has...

-Frontline The Central government's proposal to hand over the supply of supplementary nutrition to NGOs in the name of "community participation" is surely an invitation for private profiteering on the back of this supposedly public scheme. ENSURING safe and healthy conditions for the reproduction of the population is obviously the most fundamental requirement of any society. So the progress of a society can be determined (and indeed is routinely judged) by the...

-Live Mint Some commentators dismiss the seriousness of India's nutritional crisis as it fails to account for genetic differences With one in two children malnourished in India, child malnutrition is considered to be among the biggest challenges facing the country. But are these figures highly exaggerated? The answer is a resounding yes, according to Columbia University economist Arvind Panagariya, who believes that the international standards used to measure nutritional attainments of...