Sitting outside his home in a plastic chair among neighbours, Shabbir Masiullah Ahmed tries to recognise people he is meeting after five years. “You have aged,” he tells one. His brother-in-law Raees Ahmed is trying to bond with his five-year-old daughter who, he says, “has begun to recognise me”. Dr Salman Farsi complains of lack of sleep because of the steady flow of journalists and relatives. These three are among the seven men...

We see malnutrition as a burden on our conscience, and on our exchequer. We also know it is a daunting task to get rid of child malnutrition. But do we know about the economic benefits on the other side? A new FAO report tells us that India can increase its national income by a massive US$ 28 billion by eliminating child malnutrition. Now that is serious economic gain so read...

Civil society groups on Tuesday came out strongly against the Centre’s draft National Food Security Bill, which has not incorporated the National Advisory Council’s suggestion for providing maternity entitlements to about 15 crore women in the informal (non-Government) sector, as in the Central Government, thereby denying food security (breast feeding) to infants.  Similarly, the current legal guarantee of 'hot cooked meals' for children attending anganwadis has been diluted by providing the...

The enduring memory that he has of his father is when the police took him away from the dinner table as the family had just sat down to eat their food. “He had barely put the first morsel in his mouth when the police came to pick him up. After that day five years ago, it will be today that the entire family will again have food together,” 11-year-old Osama Raees...

An independent study says some 250 thermal power projects that have got clearances may be meant just to grab land and water resources. THERE have been a growing number of headlines that speak of an energy crisis and the energy deficit in India in the last few years. The disparities in the demand-supply scenario, the increasing prospects of disruptions in the global supply of fuel and the consequent results of higher...