-Down to Earth The midday meal scheme for schoolchildren is increasingly getting politicised, as the upper class elite wants to impose its own religious/food beliefs on malnourished children Most countries in the world now have some programme that provides midday meals to schoolchildren. School meals have been widely hailed for their multiple benefits — they increase enrolment and attendance, particularly of children from vulnerable groups; contribute to reduce “classroom hunger” and improve...

-The Hindu Iskcon’s Akshaya Patra Foundation refuses to add onion or garlic to the meals it provides even though the children crave the familiar taste Tabarak, a 14-year-old boy in Devarjeevanahalli, a locality in central Bengaluru, would rather walk home at lunch break to quickly grab a bite than eat the free meal served at school. “He finds the school food too bland,” says his mother, standing in the narrow passage of...

-Down to Earth Despite the rural hinterland being in the throes of agrarian distress, the incumbent coalition has won handsomely in these very areas The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has beaten all odds to win the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Prominent among these odds was the agrarian crisis that rural India is currently in the throes of. Since 2014, the country has suffered two major droughts and 850-odd...

-Newsclick.in Northern Maharashtra, which produces almost 60% of India’s total onion crop, has seen a steady fall in onion rates creating a crisis for the farmers in the drought affected state. Two months back, NewsClick reported the suicide of a 22-year-old boy whose onion crop had failed. This Akshay Tambe was from Bhoom tehsil of Marathwada, an area which is actually not known for onion cultivation. But the heart wrenching stories of...

-The New Indian Express As low prices continue to plague millions of farms all over the country, farmers and their leaders say cash transfers are fine, but main issue is agricultural prices which make farming unremunerative. NEW DELHI: Ishwar Singh is a worried man. The furrows in his brow below his once white turban have deepened. He planted Onions in his two-acre farm near Sonepat this winter and got what he believed...