Union Minister of Women and Child Development (WCD) and Textiles, Smriti Zubin Irani, along with Bill Gates, co-chair of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Bharatiya Poshan Krishi Kosh (BPKK) in New Delhi. The BPKK will be a repository of diverse crops across 128 agro-climatic zones in India for better nutritional outcomes.
Eminent agricultural scientist, Dr M. S. Swaminathan, in his address, said that to make India nutrition secure a five-point action programme has to be implemented:
- Ensure a calorie-rich diet for women, expectant mothers and children
- Ensure intake of proteins in the form of pulses to eradicate protein hunger in women and children
- Eradicate hidden hunger due to deficiency of micronutrients like vitamin A, vitamin B, Iron and Zinc
- Ensure clean drinking water supply
- Spreading nutrition literacy in every village particularly in mothers with children less than 100 days’ old
Bill Gates in his address said that if there was one problem that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation would like to solve in India it is the problem of malnutrition among women, expectant mothers and children. Solving this problem will bring about a dramatic change in the development of India and help the country to attain the SDGs. He informed that the Foundation will be happy to partner with the Government of India, the Ministry of WCD and other Ministries in every way to deal with this multi-faceted challenge in order to create a sustained nutritional programme to bring down malnutrition in the country.
Ministry of Women and Child Development
[Source: PIB]
[Press Release dt. 18-11-2019]