A recent report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) states that the countrywide lockdown imposed on 25th March, 2020, which was extended for nearly two months in phases, affected the food and nutritional status of vulnerable sections of the Indian population. It says that a programme like the Mid-Day Meal Scheme covers four-fifth of primary-school-aged children in the country that helps in improving not only nutrition but also...

-Hindustan Times Studies on migrants, domestic workers, and jobs put off till situation improves. The delay may have an adverse impact on the proposed national employment policy. The Union government has suspended work on four key surveys on migrants, domestic workers, and jobs created by the transport sector and professionals because of the deadly second wave of the pandemic, possibly delaying a national employment policy based on these surveys. With lockdowns and curfews...

-Article-14.com As the Supreme Court demands an oxygen-supply plan from the Centre, caught off guard by an exploding pandemic, the Collector of a remote, tribal district tells us how he set up five oxygen plants ahead of the second Covid wave. New Delhi: In a hearing on 5 May 2021, the Supreme Court asked the Centre to, within a day, present a plan to provide hospitals of Delhi the 900 metric tonnes...

Quite often it is argued by mainstream economists that a sizeable chunk of the Union Budget every year is wasted because the Government spends that on food and fertiliser subsidies. The burgeoning size of these two subsidies relative to the entire budget as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) is often used to build the argument that economic as well as environmental sustainability of the country is at stake...

-Down to Earth The back of the Indian farmour is against the wall amid rising costs of inputs, climate change-induced risks and faulty market mechanisms More than 28 farmers and farm labourers die by suicide in India every day, according to the 2021 State of India’s Environment (SoE) report — an annual brought out by Down To Earth in association with Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). The SoE report highlighted...