-Scroll.in The government is likely to announce a new nutrition mission with a bigger role for private companies. The Government of India is expected to announce a National Nutrition Mission in December this year. Some glimpses of what this mission will include were revealed in a recent news item in the Economic Times. The focus seems to be on centralising production of take home rations given to young children and pregnant or...

-Business Standard The All India Motor Transport Congress has said the supply of essential goods will get impacted with immediate effect New Delhi: Government’s suspension of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denomination notes has hit the truckers hard as they are unable to transport essential food items, including milk and vegetables, due to scarcity of smaller denomination currency and unacceptance of old tender notes by state authorities, toll plazas and labourers. More than...

-The Indian Express Agriculture’s contribution to poverty reduction is five times more than that of metropolitan centres Speaking at the third BRICS Urbanisation Forum in Visakhapatnam on September 14, Deputy Chairman of the Niti Ayog, Arvind Panagariya, announced that “Without cities we can’t grow rapidly”. He added, “urbanisation plays an important role in poverty alleviation”. Both claims are exaggerated and somewhat misleading. A recent report prepared for the UN points out that, over...

-The Hindu Business Line The NITI Aayog should revive district-level planning in order to implement the 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution While the Planning Commission, which was virtually an executive arm of the Union government, stands abolished, the District Planning Committee (DPC), a constitutional institution mandated “to prepare a draft development plan for the district as a whole” with a focus on resource endowments, environmental conservation, infrastructural development and spatial...

-Frontline.in The PDS, the ICDS and the MDM schemes constitute lifelines for a vast majority of the population. Maternity entitlements need to be seen both as a right for women and as instruments in the battle against undernutrition. A government that ignores or undermines them does so at its own peril. THE GLOBAL HUNGER INDEX 2016 puts India at 97 out of 118 countries. The release of these numbers is great...