Over the past one and a half weeks since our arrival in India, our team has been hard at work developing and fine-tuning our survey instruments. Building on the MNDA pilot completed by TCi interns last year, our team aims to expand the information collected about dietary diversity at the individual and household level and also gather…

One of the major constraints to dairy production in India, particularly in resource-poor, rural areas, is a lack of feed and fodder for livestock. Birthal and Jha (2005) estimate that feed scarcity is the most important constraint in the dairy industry, and accounts for nearly half of all losses in Indian dairy production. An expected deficit of…

I am working in the rural villages of Jharkhand as a TCi Intern this summer. Paired with TCi PhD Scholar Shiuli Vanaja, we will be looking at the economic and health impacts of the AguaClara water treatment technology. AguaClara is an engineering firm started by several Cornell alumni, and is supported by TCi. The technology is gravity powered and…

Anyone who has spent enough time around me (which sometimes might mean about five minutes) has been asked the question: “If you had to replace your fingers with any kind of utensil, what utensil would you choose?” This is one of many silly questions crafted by my brother, which I now use to get to know people….

“When I was young, I grew up on American food,” Mr. Sharma said. I looked up, smiling at the thought of Indians and Americans of the past sharing the same meals halfway around the world. He did not return it. His eyes filled with pain. “I was ashamed. It was shameful of us. Here we…

Jessica Ames is the Program Manager at TCi. This summer, she’ll be traveling across India to visit the TCi Summer Interns in their various field sites. When I was an undergraduate, I had the opportunity to enrich my education by spending time in other countries. Going to Honduras changed my life. It was a service…

Tanvi Rao is a TCi Scholar and PhD Candidate in Applied Economics and Management at Cornell’s Dyson School. Earlier this year, I completed a four-month long survey of 12th grade students in and around the city of Ranchi in Jharkhand, a state in eastern India. My dissertation research measures the demand for different types of post-secondary education and identifies students who…

Soumya Gupta is a PhD candidate at Cornell’s Dyson School and a research scholar with the Tata-Cornell Agriculture and Nutrition Initiative (TCi).  She was a 2015 Next Generation Delegate at the Global Food Security Symposium convened by the Chicago Council. The symposium this year focused on leveraging food systems for improved nutrition. This post originally appeared on the Chicago Council’s Global Food for…

The Tata-Cornell Agriculture and Nutrition Initiative (TCi) prides itself on being an interdisciplinary and innovative organization that draws experts and skills from across Cornell’s research areas to address food insecurity and malnutrition. The research group includes a multitude of individuals with interests ranging from agricultural economics, nutrition, animal science, and climate change mitigation and livelihood resilience. In…

2015 marks a special year for us – our first graduates! We are very proud of our scholars, researchers and interns who completed their degrees. Distinguished recognition goes out to Dr. Soumya Gupta, Ph.D in Applied Economics. Congratulations!