-The Hindu India must invest robustly in the world’s largest social programme on early childhood services Being closed since the April 2020-lockdown, anganwadis are slowly reopening. Those in Karnataka, Bihar and Tamil Nadu are opening or considering opening shortly. As part of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), anganwadis play a crucial role in supporting households, particularly from low-income families, by providing childcare, health and nutrition, education, supplementary nutrition, immunisation, health check-up...

-ThePrint.in ISEC Bangalore researchers studied NFHS data to find that out-of-pocket expenditure for a normal delivery at a public facility is higher for rural households (Rs 5,368) than urban (Rs 4,330). Maternal and child healthcare services in India – including antenatal care, natal care (institutional delivery, or births delivered in a medical facility), postnatal care, and childcare – are meant to be free of cost in public health facilities. Several policies and...

The rise in COVID-19 daily new cases and daily new deaths compelled many state governments to impose local level lockdowns during April-May 2021. As of 20th April, 2021, partial lockdowns were noticed in 10 states across the country and complete lockdown was imposed in Delhi. As of 8th May, 2021, nearly the entire country was under complete lockdown as a result of either partial lockdowns and night curfews or complete...

-Scroll.in The focus is on providing food grains to the very poor as against supporting that with more funding for existing nutrition-focussed welfare programmes. Data collated from a recent paper -studying the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020 by Jean Dreze and Anmol Somanchi reflect the grim condition of India’s looming malnutrition crisis. In a co-authored essay around April 2020, we had argued how the “hidden costs of this pandemic” (and the...

-The Indian Express Building infrastructure and services, including pre-primary education, maternity, disability and sickness benefits, and long-term care, will help ensure that India’s post-COVID recovery is equitable and gender-inclusive. The Cambridge Dictionary defines “infrastructure” as “the basic systems and services that are needed in order to support an economy.” Traditionally, infrastructure has been understood and interpreted to mean physical, immovable assets, primarily in the energy, transport, telecommunications and water sectors. Over the last...