Bengaluru, Dec 21 (Bureau) The Akshaya Patra Foundation on Tuesday collaborated with the Indian Institute of Science (IISC) to set up The Akshaya Patra Research Lab that aims to conduct comprehensive studies in child food security and elimination of malnutrition, among others. In partnership with IISc, the Foundation aims to develop a knowledge epicenter with think tanks consisting of economists, philanthropists, research scientists, government officials, and global institutes for building its efforts towards global advocacy and ending classroom hunger and malnutrition.
The partnership has been established under The Center for Society and Policy (CSP) at IISC which has resulted in an evidence-based research study and published papers on vaccine hesitancy analysis, Covid-19’s impact analysis on a child’s education and nutrition, psychology study of school children, water-food-energy nexus, and assessing human security crisis. IISc Prof Anjula Gurtoo said, “The Akshaya Patra Foundation offers us yet another opportunity to serve the country by using research-backed methods to eradicate classroom hunger from the grass root levels. The young team consisting of some of our brightest PhD scholars, professors and project associates is dedicated to working towards child’s food security policy development and advocacy.” Being the implementing partner of the central government’s school lunch programme, the organization has been instrumental in reforming policies pertaining to the scheme, improving the nutritional value for the beneficiaries under the programme, she said. The Akshaya Patra Foundation CEO Sridhar Venkat said the institution’s R&D efforts have gotten stronger over the years, and through this academic partnership with IISC, it plans to scale further. The Akshaya Patra Foundation has been effortlessly working towards providing nutritious food in the last 18 years.