ABSTRACT
Human rights refer to the norms that are internationally recognised and equally applicable to people all over the world. Included in these rights is the right to health, i.e. the right to the highest attainable standard of health (Braveman and Gruskin 2003b). Almost all countries are party to at least one treaty that encompasses rights related to health, and this means that it is the responsibility of the governments of those countries to ensure that their populations are enabled to achieve better health by providing them with conditions that help in realization of the right to health (Braveman and Gruskin 2003a; Gruskin et al. 2007). One of the ways through which governments try to fulfil this responsibility is by initiating various policies or programmes. One such programme initiated by the Indian government is the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) or the Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) which is intended to give an overall boost to universalisation of primary education (GoI 2005 and Education for All in India 2010) via provision of noon (or mid-day) meals for school-going children in classes 1-5 in all government primary schools. When launched in 1995, some state governments were reluctant to implement it. However, sustained campaigning by the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) to ensure that the right to food is seen as a corollary of the fundamental right to life as per article 21 of the Indian Constitution (PUCL 2010; Mathiharan 2003), and subsequent Supreme Court orders on the right to food case whereby it has linked the right to food to the right to health as per interpretation of article 47 of the Indian constitution, have effectively put the onus on the central government to ensure that no schoolgoing child remains hungry (Right to Food India 2010).
