Stela Dey is Senior Assistant Editor, Opinion and Ground Reports, at ThePrint. She writes on gender, class, society, literature, geopolitics, and beyond the obvious. She joined ThePrint in 2025. Stela can be reached at stela.dey@theprint.in
Last time Ms. Stela Dey lambasted the West Bengal government for handing over the mid-day meal programme in government schools to ISKCON citing how the absence of eggs in the diet would severely impact the nutrient intake of students. She claimed that religious and ideological considerations were being given more importance than the stunting and physical/mental development of the children in question – essentially making the children a scapegoat in a politico-ideological ambitions of the Bengal BJP.
Now that ISKCON is serving delicious for to the little ones – ample Bengali channel news media coverage is there to verify and certify the same – she has gone silent on this issue.
In fact, the Bengal government has continued to provide boiled eggs to the children separately. So nutrition has not taken a backseat.
If anything at all, nutrition intake has increased manifold. And what is just as important – the quality of the food being served, the cleanliness and hygiene with which it is prepared has improved manifolds. Ample media coverage in Bengal highlights these aspects.
But it would be a grave mistake on our part to think that Ms. Stela Dey would acknowledge the progress being made on this count by the new BJP government in West Bengal. After all, her single point agenda is to paint the BJP/RSS/VHP in a poor light.
Ms. Stela Dey is the typical arts graduate student at say JNU or Jadavpur University or TISS. A charlatan with a know-it-all and understand-it-all attitude.
Last time Ms. Stela Dey lambasted the West Bengal government for handing over the mid-day meal programme in government schools to ISKCON citing how the absence of eggs in the diet would severely impact the nutrient intake of students. She claimed that religious and ideological considerations were being given more importance than the stunting and physical/mental development of the children in question – essentially making the children a scapegoat in a politico-ideological ambitions of the Bengal BJP.
Now that ISKCON is serving delicious for to the little ones – ample Bengali channel news media coverage is there to verify and certify the same – she has gone silent on this issue.
In fact, the Bengal government has continued to provide boiled eggs to the children separately. So nutrition has not taken a backseat.
If anything at all, nutrition intake has increased manifold. And what is just as important – the quality of the food being served, the cleanliness and hygiene with which it is prepared has improved manifolds. Ample media coverage in Bengal highlights these aspects.
But it would be a grave mistake on our part to think that Ms. Stela Dey would acknowledge the progress being made on this count by the new BJP government in West Bengal. After all, her single point agenda is to paint the BJP/RSS/VHP in a poor light.
Ms. Stela Dey is the typical arts graduate student at say JNU or Jadavpur University or TISS. A charlatan with a know-it-all and understand-it-all attitude.