-Outlook Drawing ire for attributing Gujarat's high rate of malnutrition to young "beauty conscious" girls, Chief Minister Narendra Modi today launched the 'Gujarat State Nutrition Mission (GSNM)', offering financial aid to village panchayats to combat the problem. Aimed at combating malnutrition in Gujarat, the mission got off to a symbolic start with the chief minister distributing cheques of Rs 2 lakh each to headmen of a few panchayats out of around 18,392...

-The Telegraph A government laboratory has detected cancer-causing fungal toxins exceeding safety limits in samples of ultra-high-temperature processed milk, suggesting that a contamination problem highlighted eight years ago remains unresolved. Scientists at the Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI), Mysore, have found a compound called aflatoxin M1, a fungal product labelled a carcinogen, in about 20 per cent of the samples of UHT milk they examined. Earlier studies in India over the past...

-The Hindustan Times Amid the din of the discordant notes in Parliament and outside on scams, a significant decision by the Union cabinet went almost unnoticed. Earlier this week, the Cabinet amended the Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act (CLPRA), 1986, and renamed it as the Child and Adolescent Labour Prohibition Act (CALPA). When Parliament passes the important amendments, CALPA, along with the Right to Education (RTE) Act, it is likely...

-The Times of India Whichever way you slice and dice the data, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi's statement about causes of malnutrition in the state he has been ruling for over a decade is wrong. In an interview to the Wall Street Journal, Modi had said malnutrition exists in Gujarat because it is "by and large a vegetarian state" and also because it is a middle class state which is "more...

-Down to Earth Is placed along with countries like Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana and the People’s Democratic Republic of Lao While the world has made significant progress in child health, education and nutrition in the past decade, India has fared poorly among middle-income countries. It has been given a ranking of 112 in the Child Development Index (CDI) report released by the non-profit Save the Children. This is much lower than the...