The biggest environmental summit for a decade must make meaningful progress on global food security and sustainable agriculture, say researchers.

CGIAR, the world's largest publicly funded research body, has published a seven-point "call to action" plan.

Ahead of the Rio gathering, scientists are calling for an improved commitment to deliver nutrition security and lessen the need to aid.

Agriculture is estimated to provide jobs for 40% of the world's population.

Every third malnourished child in the State is from the Hyderabad-Karnataka region, reveals a study.

Bidar, Gulbarga, Yadgir, Raichur, and Koppal districts that comprise the Hyderabad-Karnataka region presents a shocking picture. Whereas the situation in Raichur is far worse than sub-Saharan countries and our own BIMARU states, the study notes. The HUNGaMA (Hunger and Malnutrition) report of the Naandi Foundation provides reliable estimates of the prevalence of severe malnutrition in 112 districts in Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan.

A coordinated plan of five ministries to accelerate the reduction of maternal and child under-nutrition in the country is taking pace, officials said.

National Planning Commission has recently prepared a six-year plan to improve the nutrition of babies up to two years of age through the coordinated efforts of the ministries of health, education, agriculture, local development and physical planning and works.

Community gains from genetic engineering
Genetic modification / Genetic Engineering (GM/ GE / GMO) is a technology. The entire basis for evolution is constant genetic modification by nature. With conventional breeding techniques, several hundreds of genes move from one plant / animal to another and the beneficial outcomes are selected.

New technology helps insert a single or a set of genes, which is beneficial and can be done in a much shorter time. Drug and crop developers have used this technology to come up with new drugs,

World Health Organisation (WHO) in collaboration with the Punjab Health Department has planned to put in place a "nutrition sentinel site surveillance system (NSSS)" for 0-59-month children to assess the nutritional and related health status of the children at the selected sites.

This was revealed by WHO Technical Officer Nutrition Dr Khizar Ashraf, while addressing a workshop organised by WHO in collaboration with Health Department Punjab at a local hotel on Thursday.

Interventions to fight malnutrition must be simultaneous with outcomes being monitored by an overarching body. The finance minister’s Budget 2012 speech contains the much-awaited, much-needed paradigm shift in government’s approach to reduce undernutrition and micronutrient deficiency, the indicators of which are fast qualifying India as the malnutrition capital of the world. It is now clear that high growth rates are not automatically translating into better nutritional indicators, though there is marginal improvement in infant and mortality indicators, as per SRS 2009.

AHMEDABAD: As many as 41% of the children in the state are underweight and 55% of the women between 15 to 45 years of age in the state are anemic. This was revealed in a Rajya Sabha session on Thursday.

Union minister of state (independent charge) for women and child development, Krishna Tirath in Rajya Sabha gave the details of the number of women and children suffering from malnutrition. Tirath was replying to a question posed by Member of Parliament from Jharkhand, Parimal Nathwani.