Mid-day meal: long lasting impacts on children
Shocking realities when poor parents are unable to send their children to school because of poverty.
The government of India introduced a scheme in all government elementary schools to provide children with cooked lunch namely midday meals. The Midday Meal Scheme is an integral part of the holistic development of the child in the early years of growth. Tamil Nadu was the first state in India to introduce this scheme. Sourashtra Boys Higher Secondary School in Madurai was the first school which had the scheme in 1925.
On 28th November 2001, the Supreme Court asked all state governments to begin this programme in their schools within 6 months and has shown many positive effects. Parents who couldn’t send their children to school due to poverty were eager to get their child-free nutritious food this way which results in an increased number of school-going children thereon. Mothers who used to earlier stop their work to feed their children at home, no longer need to do so now.
The Centre has rebranded the 26-year-old national, midday meal scheme to give a hot cooked meal to 11.8 crore government school students from Classes 1 to 8,
The Mid-Day Meal Programme has been running for 21 years, providing hot, nutritious meals to children at over 19,500 government schools across India. This is the primary source of sustenance for a large percentage of children and acts as an incentive for them to continue their education. Every day, children receive a wholesome midday meal at school, which protects them from hunger and the long-term effects of malnutrition
It’s even more critical now that children make up for the nourishment they’ve lost in recent months as a result of the pandemic.
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Prof. Dr. Laksmisree Banerjee is an established Poet, Writer, Editor, Literary Critic, Educationist, Humanist, International Scholar, Rotarian (a Multiple Paul Harris Fellow) & practicing Vocalist, with many National and International Awards, Assignments, Books & Publications to her credit. She is a Senior Fulbright Scholar, Commonwealth Scholar and a National Scholar in English from the Calcutta University, India. A University Professor of English, Poetry & Cultural Studies, an Ex-Vice Chancellor of Kolhan University, she has taught, lectured & recited in Universities and Literary Festivals across the globe. She has been widely anthologized with Eight Books of Poetry (the Ninth and Tenth forthcoming) One Hundred Twenty Research Publications and Several Academic Books. Of the many Awards she has received, a special few need to be mentioned viz. Sahitya Akademi’s “Avishkar” Honour for her multiple expertise, cited as “A Scholar-Artiste and Poet-Musician”, her UGC Postdoctoral Research Award for her path-breaking Literary Work on the Comparative Studies of World Women Poets, the Honour of The Connossiuer of Creative & Literary Arts by the Tunisian-Asian Poetic Society, the Kala-Ratnam Award and the Reuel International Lifetime Achievement Award 2021,among others. Dr. Banerjee happens to be the Indian Rashtrapati’s Nominee on Boards of Central Universities & believes in using her Pen and Voice for Social Justice, Transformation, Peace & International Understanding.
Smaragdi Mitropoulou was born in Athens. She has studied history and archaeology at the University of Athens and had postgraduate history studies at the University of Cardiff, in Great Britain. She serves in secondary education. She is also a CreativeWriting graduate (Diploma in Creative Writing) from the Writers’ Bureau College(Manchester, UK), and has studied theatre writing at the International TheaterInstitute and directing at the Foundation of Culture in Tinos island. She has received awards in Greece and abroad for her poetry and prose. Also, she is a Programme Coordinator & Member of the Executive Board of Writers Capital InternationalFoundation. So far, she has written six books, which have been published and launched in Greece. Two of them, “One moment just an eternity” and “Sounds in the
