The Midday Meal Scheme is the popular name for school meal programme in India which started in the 1960s. It involves provision of lunch free of cost to school-children on all working days. The key objectives of the programme are: protecting children from classroom hunger, increasing school enrolment and attendance, improved socialisation among children belonging to all castes, addressing malnutrition, and social empowerment through provision of employment to women. The scheme has a long history, especially in the state of Tamil Nadu introduced statewide by the then Chief Minister K. Kamaraj in 1960s and later expanded by M. G. Ramachandran government in 1982 has been adopted by most of the states in India after a landmark direction by the Supreme Court of India on November 28, 2001.^[1] The success of this scheme is illustrated by the tremendous increase in the school participation and completion rates in Tamil Nadu.

History[link]

One of the pioneers of the scheme is Madras that started providing cooked meals to children in corporation schools in the Madras city in 1923. The programme was introduced in a large scale in 1960s under the Chief Ministership of K. Kamaraj after visiting Sourashtra Higher Secondary School – Madurai, were this program had been implemented by liguistic minority people since 1922. The first major thrust came in 1982 when Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Dr. M. G. Ramachandran, decided to universalise the scheme for all children up to class 10. Tamil Nadu’s midday meal programme is among the best known in the country. Less known, but equally interesting is the history of Pondicherry, which started universal school feeding as early as 1930.

There is an interesting story about how K. Kamaraj got the idea of a noon meal scheme. He saw a few boys busy with their cows and goats. He asked one small boy, "What are you doing with these cows? Why didn't you go to school?" The boy immediately answered, "If I go to school, will you give me food to eat? I can learn only if I eat." The boy's retort sparked the entire process into establishing the midday meal programme.

Several other states of India also have programmes. The most notable among them is Gujarat that has had it since the late 1980s. Kerala started providing cooked meals in schools since 1995 and so did Madhya Pradesh and Orissa in small pockets. On November 28, 2001 the Supreme Court of India gave a landmark direction to government to provide cooked meals to all children in all government and government assisted primary schools. The direction was resisted vigorously by State governments initially, but the programme has become almost universal by 2005. Recently Govt. of India has launch new Mid day Meal Scheme Website i.e. http://mdm.nic.in

National Programme for Nutrition Support to Primary Education[link]

Although the programme in Tamil Nadu was initially termed as an act of "Populism", the success of the scheme made the project hugely popular. The success was so spectacular that in 1995, the then Indian prime minister P.V.Narsimha Rao hailed the success of the project and suggested that the scheme be implemented all over the country, and thus began the "National Programme for Nutrition Support to Primary Education".

According to the programme the Government of India will provide grains free of cost and the States will provide the costs of other ingredients, salaries and infrastructure. Since most State governments were unwilling to commit budgetary resources they just passed on the grains from Government of India to the parents. This system was called provision of ‘dry rations’. On November 28, 2001 the Supreme Court of India gave a famous direction that made it mandatory for the state governments to provide cooked meals instead of ‘dry rations’. The direction was to be implemented from June 2002, but was violated by most States. But with sustained pressure from the court, media and in particular from the Right to Food Campaign more and more states started providing cooked meals.

In May 2004 a new coalition government was formed in the centre, which promised universal provision of cooked meals fully funded by the centre. This promise in its Common Minimum Programme was followed by enhanced financial support to the states for cooking and building sufficient infrastructure. Given this additional support the scheme has expanded its reach to cover most children in primary schools in India. In 2005 it is expected to cover 130 million children.

The Supreme Court Direction[link]

In April 2001 People’s Union for Civil Liberties (Rajasthan) initiated the now famous right to food litigation. This public interest litigation has covered a large range of issues relating to right to food, but the best known intervention by the court is on midday meals. In one of its many direction in the litigation the Supreme Court directed the government to fully implement its scheme of providing cooked meals to all children in primary schools. This landmark direction converted the Midday Meal Scheme into a legal entitlement, the violation of which can be taken up in the court of law. The direction and further follow-up by the Supreme Court has been a major instrument in universalising the scheme.

ISKCON Food Relief Foundation[link]

The ISKCON Food Relief Foundation (IFRF) was established in year 2004 in Mumbai and objectives of IFRF is to eradicate hunger and promoting education amongst the under-privileged sections of the society and thereby ensuring their socio-economic development.

Akshaya Patra and private sector participation in midday meals[link]

The State of Karnataka introduced the provision of cooked meals in June 2002. Since then it has successfully involved private sector participation in the programme. One of the successful ventures is Akshaya Patra, which started with freshly cooked meals from ISKCON temple in Bangalore. The Foundation gets a corpus from the State government but meets a major share of its costs with donations from private corporations and individuals in the city.

Other aspects of the programme[link]

The programme in Gujarat also includes regular provision of iron tablets (to counter anaemia) and deworming tablets once in six months. In Tamil Nadu also the children are dewormed at regular intervals. Mid Day Meal scheme is implemented by Annamrit

School meal programmes in other parts of the world[link]

A school meal programme is now a standard welfare measure for school children in developing as well as developed nations. Even countries such as USA have it in many states. World Food Programme, among other organisations, are involved in the programme in many countries across the world.

Scams[link]

Various scams involving Midday Meal Scheme have been unearthed since it was started.

In January 2006, the Delhi Police unearthed a scam in the Midday Meal Scheme.^[2] In December 2005, the police had seized eight truckloads (2,760 sacks) of rice meant for primary schoolchildren being carried from Food Corporation of India (FCI) godowns in Bulandshahr District of UP to North Delhi. When the police detained the trucks, the drivers claimed that the rice was being brought all the way to Delhi to be cleaned at a factory. However, according to the guidelines, the rice has to be taken directly from FCI godown to the school or village concerned. Later it was found that the rice was being siphoned off by a UP-based NGO, Bharatiya Manav Kalyan Parishad (BMKP), in connivance with the government officials.

In November 2006, the residents of Pembong village under the Mim tea estate (around 30 km from Darjeeling), accused a group of teachers of embezzling midday meals. In a written complaint, the residents claimed that students at the primary school had not got midday meal for the past 18 months.^[3]

In December 2006, The Times of India reported a scam involving government schools that siphon off foodgrains under the midday meal scheme by faking attendance.^[4] The modus operandi of the schools was simple—the attendance register would exaggerate the number of students enrolled in the class. The additional students would not exist—they were "enrolled" to get additional foodgrains which were pocketed by the school staff. The scam was exposed, when P Asha Kumari, an assistant teacher at the government model primary school, Jakkur, in Yelahanka acted as a whistleblower. She informed the Lok Ayukta, who conducted a probe and indicted four persons for misappropriation. The whistleblower was harassed by the school staff and requested a transfer. She was transferred to a government primary school at Cholanayakahalli, where she again found the same modus operandi being used to siphon off the foodgrains. She again complained to the Lok Ayukta, who issued notice to the school.

Criticism[link]

Despite the success of the program, child hunger as a problem persists in India. According to current statistics, 42.5% of the children under 5 are underweight. This is due to simple reasons such as not using iodized salt.^[5] “India is home to the world’s largest food insecure population, with more than 200 million people who are hungry,” India State Hunger Index (ISHI) said, adding that the country’s poor performance is driven by its high levels of child under-nutrition and poor calorie count. “Its rates of child malnutrition is higher than most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa,” it noted.^[6] A report released as part of the 2009 Global Hunger Index ranks India at 65 out of 84 countries. The 2008 report says that India has more people suffering hunger – a figure above 200 million – than any other country in the world, it says. The report also says "improving child nutrition is of utmost urgency in most Indian states".^[7]

See also[link]

• Free school meals
• Nutrition

References[link]

Noon (also midday or noon time) is usually defined as 12 o'clock in the daytime. However the term midday is used colloquially to refer to a range of time, usually 11-1. The word noon is also used informally to mean midday regarding the location of the sun, as opposed to the middle of one's day. Although this is a time around the middle of the day when people in many countries take a lunch break. Solar noon is 12 o'clock apparent solar time, or around 12 – 1 p.m. local time depending on daylight saving time, the moment when the sun crosses the meridian and is about at its highest elevation in the sky. The clock time of solar noon depends on the longitude and date.^[1]

The opposite of noon is midnight.

In many cultures in the northern hemisphere, noon had ancient geographic associations with the direction "south" (as did midnight with "north" in some cultures). Remnants of the noon = south association are preserved in the words for noon in French (midi) and Italian (mezzogiorno), both of which also refer to the southern parts of the respective countries. Modern Polish and Ukrainian go a step farther, with the words for noon (południe, полудень – literally "half-day") also meaning "south" and the words for "midnight" (północ, північ – literally "half-night", as with English mid(dle) meaning "half") also meaning "north".

Etymology[link]

The word noon is derived from Latin nona hora, the ninth hour of the day, and is related to the liturgical term none. The Roman and Western European medieval monastic day began at 6:00 a.m. (06:00) by modern timekeeping, so the ninth hour started at what is now 3:00 p.m. (15:00). In English, the meaning of the word shifted to midday and the time gradually moved back to 12:00. The change began in the twelfth century and was fixed by the fourteenth century.^[2]

Solar noon[link]

Solar noon is the moment when the Sun transits the celestial meridian – roughly the time when it highest above the horizon on that day. This is also the origin of the terms ante meridiem and post meridiem as noted below. The Sun is directly overhead at solar noon at the equator on the equinoxes; at the Tropic of Cancer (latitude 23° 26′ 16″ N) on the June solstice; and at the Tropic of Capricorn (23° 26′ 16″ S) on the December solstice.

Muslims called solar noon as Zawwal (زوال) and is the time by which they can start offering their Dhuhr prayers.

Nomenclature[link]

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With 12-hour time notation, most authorities^[who?] recommend avoiding confusion by using "noon", "12 noon", or "12:00 noon".

Digital clocks and computers commonly display 12 p.m. for noon. While that phrase may be used practically, it helps to understand that any particular time is actually an instant. The "p.m." shown on clock displays refers to the 12-hour period following the instant of noon, not to the instant itself.

While computers and digital clocks display "12:00 a.m." and "12:00 p.m." these notations provide no clear and unambiguous way to distinguish between midnight and noon. It is actually improper to use "a.m." and "p.m." when referring to 12:00. The abbreviation a.m. stands for ante meridiem (or before the meridian) and p.m. stands for post meridiem (or after the meridian), with the meridian being 12:00 noon. For this reason, neither abbreviation is correct for noon or midnight.^[3] The length of the error is determined by the smallest unit of time: 12:00:01 p.m. would be correctly notated, as would even 12:00:00.00001 pm.

The most common ways to represent these times are:

• to use a 24-hour clock (00:00 and 12:00, 24:00)
• to use "12 noon" or "12 midnight", although unless the person is referring to a general time and not a specific day, "12 midnight" is still ambiguous
• to specify midnight as between two successive days or dates (Midnight Saturday/Sunday or Midnight December 14/15)
• to use "12:01 a.m." or "11:59 p.m." This final usage is common in the travel industry, especially train and plane schedules, to avoid confusion as to passengers' schedules

The 30th edition of the U.S. Government Style Manual (2008) sections 9.54 and 12.9b recommends the use of "12 a.m." for midnight and "12 p.m." for noon.^{[4][5][nb 1]}

See also[link]

• 12-hour clock
• Dipleidoscope
• Midnight
• Hour angle
• Solar azimuth angle

Notes[link]

1. ^ The 29th edition of the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual (2000) section 12.9 recommended the opposite the use of "12 p.m." for midnight and "12 a.m." (formerly "12 m.") for noon.

References[link]

External links[link]

Media related to Noon at Wikimedia Commons

• Generate a solar noon calendar for your location
• U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual (2008), 30th edition
• Shows the hour and angle of sunrise, noon, and sunset drawn over a map.

v t e Parts of a day Dawn · Twilight–Sunrise · Morning · Daylight · Evening · Sunset–Twilight–Dusk · Night Related articles: Blue hour · Golden hour · Terminator · Forenoon · Noon · Afternoon · Midnight · Daytime · Midnight sun