Rights for Little Workers

Bharat Dogra WHILE hunger and malnutrition remain the most urgent, the most tragic problems of our country, the absence of a clear and comprehensive National Nutrition Policy (NNP) has been a glaring shortcoming of our planned development effort, such as it exists. Recently C Gopalan, former Director- General of the Indian Council of Medical Research and one of the most prominent experts in the field of nutrition, has provided at least the framework of such a policy." At the outset Gopalan points out very rightly that the aim of the NNP must be to ensure that even the poorest segments of the population are able to obtain at least the least expensive balanced diets (not just calories) which will provide them with full physiological requirements of essential nutrients needed for their normal growth, development and functioning. Oh the other hand, India Is passing through a dangerous development phase of 'nutritional transition' in which large-scale famines and acute starvation have been prevented, but a positive state of nutrition has yet to be achieved. This transitional phase must be traversed as expeditiously as possible, and towards this end the NNP must rest on the following six main planks.