Students fall sick after rat cooked in ‘dal’ in UP midday meal

Agencies
December 3, 2019

Hapur, Dec 3: At least 10 children were hospitalised on Tuesday after they were fed 'dal' which had a dead rat in it during the midday meal in a government school.

The meal, meant for students between Class 6 and 8, had been prepared by an NGO called Jan Kalyan Sanstha Committee which is based in Hapur.

A teacher who consumed the food along with the children has also been hospitalized.

All the students and the teacher were later discharged from the hospital.

According to reports, the dead rat was found at the bottom of the vessel in which the 'urad dal' had been cooked.

"By that time, many of the students had already eaten the food and had started vomiting," said a student.

Talking to reporters after the incident Ram Sagar Tripathi, a local education official, called the shocking incident an example of "carelessness".

He said, "The Jan Kalyan Sanstha Vikas Committee prepares the food for the mid-day meal scheme. Today, there was a dead rat in the dal. We stopped serving it as soon as it was detected. Nine children had already consumed the dal and were taken to hospital."

The official said action would be initiated against the NGO concerned.

In recent weeks the UP government has made headlines, for all the wrong reasons, with its mid-day meal scheme.

Last week, a video from the Sonebhadra district showed a cook at a mid-day meal kitchen mixing one litre of milk with a bucket of water for 81 children in the school.

In September, students of a government school in Mirzapur district were seen in a video being served roti with salt during the midday meal.

The website of the Uttar Pradesh Mid-Day Meal Authority, the overseeing body for these meals in the state, describes an elaborate menu that is supposed to be served to the children at the state-run primary schools. It includes pulses, rice, rotis and vegetables. Fruits and milk are included on certain days, according to the meal chart.

These meals are supposed to provide a minimum of 450 calories to each child every day and must include at least 12 grams of protein and should be served to every child at least 200 days a year.

According to the state government, it has provided mid-day meals in more than 1.5 lakh primary and middle schools across the state and more than one crore children are supposed to benefit from the scheme.

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Agencies
February 11,2020

New Delhi, Feb 11: People of Delhi have explained the true meaning of nationalism through their mandate, AAP's prominent face Manish Sisodia said as he clinched victory on the Patparganj seat.

Sisodia, who retained his seat for the third time, said the BJP indulged in "politics of hate", but people refused to be divided.

"I am happy to have won the Patparganj seat again. The BJP indulged in politics of hate, but I thank the people of Patparganj. Today, Delhi's people have chosen a government which works for them and explained the true meaning of nationalism through their mandate," he told reporters.

Sisodia, who was the Deputy Chief Minister and led the government's education reforms agenda, defeated BJP's Ravinder Singh Negi by a margin of over 3,500 votes.

The initial trends saw a seesaw battle between Sisodia and Negi.

In 2013, Sisodia had won by a margin of 11,000 votes and in 2015 by over 28,000 votes.

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Agencies
May 14,2020

New Delhi, May 14: India may witness the death of additional 1.2-6 lakh children over the next one year from preventable causes as a consequence to the disruption in regular health services due to the COVID-19 pandemic, UNICEF has warned.

The warning comes from a new study that brackets India with nine other nations from Asia and Africa that could potentially have the largest number of additional child deaths as a consequence to the pandemic.

These potential child deaths will be in addition to the 2.5 million children who already die before their fifth birthday every six months in the 118 countries included in the study.

The estimate is based on an analysis by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health published in the Lancet.  

This means the global mortality rate of children dying before their fifth birthday, one of the key progress indicators in all of the global development, could potentially increase for the first time since 1960 when the data was first collected.

There were 1.04 million under-5 deaths in India in 2017, of which nearly 50% (0.57 million) were neonatal deaths. The highest number of under-5 deaths was in Uttar Pradesh (312,800 which included 165,800 neonatal deaths) and Bihar (141,500 which included 75,300 neonatal deaths).

The researchers looked at three scenarios, factoring in parameters like reduction in workforce, supplies and access to healthcare for services like family planning, antenatal care, childbirth care, postnatal care, vaccination and preventive care for early childhood. The effects are modelled for a period of three months, six months and 12 months.  

In scenario-1 marked by 10-18% reduction of coverage of all the services, the number of additional children deaths could be in the range of 30,000 plus over three months, more than 60,000 over six months and above 120,000 over the next 12 months.

Coronavirus India update: State-wise total number of confirmed cases, deaths on May 13

The numbers sharply rose to nearly 55,000; 109,000 and 219,000 respectively for scenario-2, which was associated with an 18-28% drop in all the regular services.

But in the worst-case scenario in which 40-50% of the services are not available, the number of additional deaths ballooned to 1.5 lakhs in the three months in the short-range to nearly six lakhs over a year.

The ten countries that could potentially have the largest number of additional child deaths are Bangladesh, Brazil, Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uganda and Tanzania.

In countries with already weak health systems, COVID-19 is causing disruptions in medical supply chains and straining financial and human resources.

Visits to health care centres are declining due to lockdowns, curfews and transport disruptions, and due to the fear of infection among the communities. Such disruptions could result in potentially devastating increases in maternal and child deaths, the UN agency warned.

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News Network
March 26,2020

New Delhi, Mar 26: The total number of people who have been confirmed positive for COVID-19 in India has risen to 649 in India, including 593 active cases and 42 people who have been cured or discharged from hospitals, according to the recent update by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Thursday morning.
The death toll due to the novel coronavirus in the country has reached 13, the official data reported. There have been 3 more deaths due to COVID-19 reported in the country since last evening.
An 85-year-old woman in Gujarat died yesterday while with the passing away of a 65-year-old woman, Madhya Pradesh reported its first COVID-19 death. Tamil Nadu also reported its first death in the state yesterday due to the deadly infection.
According to report from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) India had tested 24,254 people as of 8 p.m. on March 25.
The country is now in its second day of a 21-day lockdown that was announced by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday to deal with the spread of coronavirus, saying that "social distancing" is the only option to deal with the disease, which spreads rapidly.
The central government had on Wednesday announced that it will provide 7 kg ration to 80 crore people in India. The Centre also said that it has earmarked Rs 1.80 lakh crores for providing wheat at Rs 2 per kg and rice at Rs 3 per kg
"Union Cabinet has decided to provide wheat at Rs 2 per kg which is worth Rs 27 per kg and rice at Rs 3 per kg which is worth Rs 37 per kg. A total amount of Rs 1 lakh 80 thousand crores is being spent for the cause. The amount will be given in advance to the states for the coming 3 months," Union Minister Sadananda Gowda said yesterday.
Those shops which are catering to essential services will continue doing so during the 21-day nationwide lockdown.

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