VEDANTA KHUSHI

"KHUSHI" is an AWARENESS CAMPAIGN, launched by Vedanta Resources plc, with a focus to sensitize people towards care for the underprivileged and deprived children – their Nutrition – Education – Health and overall development. Join Khushi on facebook at www.facebook.com/groups/vedantakhushi and send motivational stories at khushi.creatinghappiness@gmail.com . LET US MAKE INDIA A CHILD MALNOURISHED FREE NATION..

Khushi Debated on Care for the Malnourished Children in India

"KHUSHI – Care for the Underprivileged Children" initiated a debate on 18th May, 2012  with title " Every 3rd Malnourished Child in this world stays in India - Does solution lies in Public-Private Partnership?”. and About 80 people joined the discussion.
The participants came up with their perspective, comments and views on the issue of malnurished children in India. Some viws are reproduced below:


MALNUTRITION in India is due to lack of food supplies in India is leading food producer in the world, but all the food produced becomes stale and gets wasted due to bad storage system in government go downs.. so in my opinion first of all storage system should be improved.. and secondly people must be made aware of mid day meal programme .as i was amazed to know that poor people don"t know about the mid day meal programmme.


Government is doing there bit by running so many schemes. But the benefits are not reaching to the masses. Under-privileged are not even aware of such schemes and so are deprived of them. Corporates have also got into sustainability projects and helping out the Government. If Government and Corporates can make the efforts in bringing the change then why should we lag behind? I think the time has come where we should also pull up our socks and do our bit of responsibility towards the society, towards the nation…….

this is a serious problem.. n according to me solution isn’t that easy.. 1. lets not expect anything from the government.. problem wouldn’t have been so huge, had our government was looking into it seriously. 2. there isn’t lack of resources in our country, the main problem is unequal distribution ( a big chunk of recourses cud be found with our govt. officials). 3. people who donate do not know where this donation goes.

So, if these chunk of people having extra incomes move a hand towards the poor and make sure that there extra income or resources are channelised in the right direction and are utilised by the poor, the issue may become lighter. As a layman and responsible citizens even we can do this much.. just have to give up a burger n hand it to the needy.. :)


its really a serious issue..as far as govt. is concerned, the ICDS scheme(integrated child dev. Services) is an excellent scheme by central govt. under this scheme every child can be given-supplementary nutrition, immunization, health checkup, referral services, preschool non formal education and nutrition and health education...centre is spending much money..the revised version of the scheme also elucidates that severely malnourished children(6-72 months) will get 800kcal per day and 20-25gm proteins per day..thing is that how many people know this???we lack awareness..in my opinion along with different programmes by CSR, companies should also take interest in promoting the govt. Programmes at grass root level, so that the real problem may be minimised....

we need not contribute only by way of cheques to donation, but we can contribute to this by reducing wastages of food in our daily routines, every portion of food which goes to dustbin or drain is food which could have stopped malnutrition of a child in sum corner of this world. Instead of pointing our negatives in all the institutions like anganwadi, mid day meal programs, we should also ask ourselves if we know something is going wrong somewhere and we are soooooooo concerned about it that we can write few lines on social network, we can also get ourselves up in front fighting to remove those irregularities and make things move in positives. That would be the real solution.

Efforts should be focused on states, districts, and communities with the highest concentration of poor and vulnerable households, and on more vulnerable individuals within those households such as women, young children. State- and district-level planning and implementation capacities need to be strengthened. Programs that work with families and communities should increase their attention to girls’ and women’s health and empowerment and to increase women’s access to nutrition, health, and education.

The Participation of Corporates should first be in filling the gaps in the execution of the government policies by providing infrastructural and training support and then taking innovative projects with various NGOs.

while every third child would suffer of malnutrition by birth there are many who also suffer because of hunger. Ever seen the rag pickers and their children.. for me they are the countries best environmentalist. They pick rags, waste and keep the environment clean. Since they have no choice they even fancy the food usually thrown away in the garbage. Why not do something for them also? Why not create a system for preserving tons of delicacies that is simply dumped on the road as garbage? May be this would at least be meaningful for these deprived lot.

very well said, rag pickers are the major chunk of the population who are malnourished....we should not waste our food, whenever required we should give it to the needy..its just a small effort but it might help. . ..


Government has been working to solve the problem of Malnutrition by opening: Various Anganwadis (Child Care Centres) in all the states of India, Mid-day Meal Schemes in all the Government Schools and there are examples where Corporates also provide aids to the Government in curbing the Malnutrition

Government has the set pattern of implementing their nutrition policies like i mentioned before, through anganwadis and mid day meal schemes....but it is difficult for them to monitor these schemes all alone....value addition is required through introducing play-way methods and highly nutritious diet and this is not just one man's game... it needs big organizations like Corporates who can enhance the nutrition strategies of the Government.........

Anganwadis ..let me tell u I have been to quite a few ones as part of my rural posting during my medicine internship ..either the programmes don't function at all or if they do it's with lack of resources..n a majority of d village not participating at all!

Midday meals....we all know what they are the first step to the salvation of these children is to remove this corrupt system, only then can we expect substantial changes. In our country everything begins on a positive note but ends up corrupted.


hello , the topic which we have taken "every third malnourished child in this world stays in India" and its true and it can be solved, no doubt your next line the solution lies in public and private partnership is absolutely correct but really is their any partnership between public and private . its not their , first we will have to develop that partnership and after that we will have to see about our every third malnourished child who stays in India and this can be done. we all together will make it happen so that no person thinks just of himself/herself but first thinks of others who really need and this cannot be done by sitting at home and earning lots and lots of this can be done when the rich class and middle class people go out of their air conditioned room and offices and not more but help just a single "malnourished child" and then see the change ..we will make our country free of malnourished and poor child and i expect the same from all others

thank youuuu. khushi you are doing a great job and i think we will do it ....


Indian Government needs a comprehensive nutrition strategy. They should learn and take advantage of the diverse experiences of other countries and implement those programs within India. Monitoring and implementation of this program can be taken care by Corporates that could help in involving more and more people which would ultimately can lead to address the Malnutrition problem in more effective way.


A malnourished person finds that their body has difficulty doing normal things such as growing and resisting disease. Physical work becomes problematic and even learning abilities can be diminished.

When a person is not getting enough food or not getting the right sort of food, malnutrition is just around the corner. Disease is often a factor, either as a result or contributing cause. Even if people get enough to eat, they will become malnourished if the food they eat does not provide the proper amounts of micronutrients - vitamins and minerals - to meet daily nutritional requirements.

Malnutrition is the largest single contributor to disease, according to the UN's Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN).

Malnutrition at an early age leads to reduced physical and mental development during childhood. Stunting, for example, affects more than 147 million pre-schoolers in developing countries, according to SCN's World Nutrition Situation 5th report. Iodine deficiency, the same report shows, is the world's greatest single cause of mental retardation and brain damage.

Under-nutrition affects school performance and studies have shown it often leads to a lower income as an adult. It also causes women to give birth to low birth-weight babies.

Eliminating malnutrition involves sustaining the quality and quantity of food a person eats, as well as adequate health care and a healthy environment. Many organizations are trying their best to fight against malnutrition. Let us also get involved in this powerful fight against malnutrition by "Vedanta group.

Its again a large problem which can be solved by small steps by everyone and is interlinked with all other problems like poverty, illiteracy, child labour etc... Public-private partnerships are of course a very good way of implementing solutions to child malnourishment

The GoI has all the policies and strategies in place. However, the implementation remains feeble. As a result, gaping loopholes in a policy go unnoticed as there is insufficient manpower to execute and monitor the policies laid down by the Centre. For instance, under the mid day meal scheme 450 calories are to be provided to primary level and 750 to upper primary. Considering that the parents of these children do not have the relevant documents specifying the age of a child, even 15 and 16 year olds are enrolled in govt. schools. Is this much intake of calories enough for a 15 year old considering that this age group is still enrolled in class 4 or 5?

I feel even if d government is coming up with programs like anganwadi ,there is lack of awareness among d people . So first make d people aware by taking d help of media .. Tvs,local newspapers, by going to nearby villages n spreading awareness.. Corporates cm into play at this time.. Secondly d major cause of malnutrition is poverty... So increase d daily wages of workers , open up community health programs for immunization n regular check ups should b done of d pregnant women as well as kids.. Educate d parents. so that their progeny doesn't suffer .. Population explosion n inability of parents to support their children is yet another cause of child death due to malnutrition..


To accelerate progress in reducing child malnutrition, India should focus on the following four cross-cutting strategic approaches:

a. ensuring that economic growth and poverty reduction policies reach the poor;
b. redesigning nutrition and health policies and programs by drawing on science and technology for nutritional improvement, strengthening their implementation, and increasing their coverage;
c. increasing investments and actions in nutrition services for communities with the highest concentration of poor; and
d. focusing programs on girls’ and women’s health and nutrition

Khushi – Care for the Underprivileged Children
Posted by
VEDANTA KHUSHI , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)