-The Business Standard The tragedy involving the death of children in a Bihar school should reinforce recent efforts to improve the programme, notes Amarjeet Sinha. The sad loss of 23 innocent lives after consuming hot cooked meals in a school in Bihar has rightly shocked and angered people. The highly poisonous pesticide monocrotophos found in children's food and a headmistress overlooking the cook and the children's protests about the oil and not...

-The Times of India The tragic incident in Bihar has raised questions about the midday meal (MDM) scheme, an otherwise popular and successful programme. Laggard states should use this as an opportunity to catch up with others and protect the scheme against emerging dangers. For those unfamiliar with it, the MDM scheme is a huge programme that today feeds more than 11 crore children every day. It is also a very popular...

-Outlook Malnutrition, especially among children and in tribal areas, is nobody's priority 40-45 per cent of women in Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh are malnourished; their babies will likely be born so. 40-45 per cent of women in Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh are malnourished; their babies will likely be born so. *** What is it about the government that the starvation deaths of children don't jolt it out of its stupor?...

-The Hindu Social audits of the mid-day meal scheme by parents can ensure that the world's largest intervention against hunger that also helps keep children in school need not suffer setbacks like the Bihar tragedy This week, 23 children lost their lives after having a mid-day meal served at a school in Bihar's Saran district. Preliminary reports suggest that the school lacked a storage facility for foodgrain which led to contamination and...

-The Guardian Half of Indians have no toilet. It's one of many gigantic failures that have prompted Nobel prize-winning academic Amartya Sen to write a devastating critique of India's economic boom The roses are blooming at the window in the immaculately kept gardens of Trinity College, Cambridge and Amartya Sen is comfortably ensconced in a cream armchair facing shelves of his neatly catalogued writings. There are plenty of reasons for satisfaction...