Citizens’ Alliance against Malnutrition

Jay Panda is a member of the Citizens’ Alliance against Malnutrition, a high level advocacy group comprising of young parliamentarians, from various parties and other influential personalities. The goal of the alliance is to raise its voice against malnutrition so that collective national consciousness can be converted into action to eliminate the menace of malnutrition.

As part of the initiative, the alliance members travel across the country, visiting regions with high prevalence of malnutrition. On these visits they meet children, mothers, anganwadi workers, government officials and political leaders to understand why child malnutrition persists. They also raise the issue in different forums.

The work of the alliance prompted the Naandi Foundation to conduct, in 2011, the nation’s first ever large scale nutrition survey which captured nutrition data from over 100,000 children and interviewed more than 74,000 mothers. This survey, christened the HUNGaMA (Hunger and Malnutrition) Survey, was released by the Prime Minister in January 2012, at the behest of the alliance. The survey report can be accessed here: http://bit.ly/you5rD

Other members of the Alliance include:

Manoj Kumar (CEO, Naandi Foundation); Brajesh Pathak (BSP); Kanimozhi (DMK); Mohammed Salim (CPI-M); Naveen Jindal (INC); Prema Cariappa (INC); Sachin Pilot (INC); Shahnawaz Hussain (BJP); Supriya Sule (NCP); Aamir Khan (Actor); Feroz Gujral (Media Personality); Gautam Thapar (Industrialist); Gouri Karnik (Actor); Neerja Chowdhury (Journalist); Penaz Masani (Ghazal Singer); Rahul Bose (Actor); Samir Dalwai (Pediatrician); Shyam Bengal (Film Maker and M.P. Nominated); and MS Dhoni(Cricketer).