Myths and Realities of Child Nutrition

footprintsworld.com 

EPW:Stuart Gillespie 

In his article Arvind Panagariya argues that (a) the prevailing narrative of child malnutrition being worse in India “than nearly all Sub-Saharan African countries with lower per capita incomes” is false, (b) that this notion is an “artefact of a faulty methodology”, and (c) that the nutrition situation and recent trends in India are not so bad anyway.

The apparent motivation for the paper was the author’s perception that malnutrition statistics were becoming increasingly wielded as a political weapon by critics of India’s economic policy reforms. He suggests that India’s “otherwise measured” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was misguided in stating that “the problem of malnutrition is a matter of national shame” in early 2011.

But there are several major flaws in his argument, which I describe here.

Creating 'Joyful' Anganwadis

Economics and Political Weekly(EPW) editorial on National Food Security Bill

The Hindu-Keshav

There are uncanny parallels between the history of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) and the course so far of the National Food Security Bill. Both legislations were drafted by the National Advisory Council, tabled in Parliament in a much diluted form, and substantially repaired in response to various agitations and recommendations (including those of a Parliamentary Standing Committee) before being put to vote. The revised version of the National Food Security Bill was recently cleared by the union cabinet and is expected to be discussed in Parliament before the end of the budget session. Like NREGA, the revised food bill is a compromise document that falls short of the initial vision behind it and yet upholds some important entitlements.

Cash Transfers:A sceptical note by Jayati Ghosh