NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION, INDIA CHAPTER 7 Right to Food and Nutrition 7.1 India is the world’s second most populous country and third largest economy, in purchasing power parity. Despite the recent strong economic growth in the country, access to adequate nutritious food for about a fourth of the population is still a concern. In addition, despite improvements in the nutritional status of children, still too many are malnourished, and a significant number of pregnant and lactating women suffer from iron deficiency anaemia. Nobel laureate Prof. Amartya Sen has strongly emphasized the need to strengthen people’s entitlements in order to ensure food security to them in his famous work “Poverty and Famines”. He advocated human development alone to be the real economic development. Despite rapid economic growth and gains in reducing its poverty rate, India is saddled with among the highest levels of hunger and malnutrition in the world. Not only does India have high levels of hunger and malnutrition but it has also reduced hunger only marginally over the past two decades. The National Family Health Survey 4 (2015-16), reflects upon this problem as more than half of the women (53 percent) between (15-49) years are anaemic in the country and 22 percent have Body Mass Index (BMI) below normal. Among children younger than 5 years, 35.7 percent have low weight for age and 21 percent have low weight for height. 7.2 India is an active member of the United Nations and is a State Party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for transforming the world by 2030 have also been endorsed by the Government of India. These 17 goals offer a vision of a more prosperous, peaceful and sustainable world in which no one is left behind. They seek to build on the 2000 Millennium Development Goals. This all the more casts an obligation on the Government to respect, protect and fulfill the right to food of every citizen of India. The Government of India is implementing food, livelihood and social security programmes, such as the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Scheme, Mid-day Meal Scheme (MDMS), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) and Public Distribution System (PDS), supporting vulnerable people so that they can have access to basic needs, especially food. 7.3 The Government of India has undertaken many reforms in the country’s existing social security programmes in order to improve delivery on nutrition and food security targets. They have launched ambitious schemes such as the National Food Security Act, the National Nutrition Strategy and the National Nutrition Mission, which have the aim of promoting convergent approaches that reflect the multidimensional nature of food and nutrition insecurity, and 108 ANNUAL REPORT 2019-20