West Bengal: The fight over eggs in India's mid-day meals

This question has dominated Indian social media and headlines after the eastern state of West Bengal announced last week that eggs would be replaced with vegetarian alternatives in some government school lunches as part of a pilot project. The scheme, better known as the midday meal programme, provides free cooked lunches to children in government and government-aided schools. For millions of underprivileged children, it is the most nutritious - and sometimes only - meal they eat all day. The scheme has long been credited with improving nutrition, reducing hunger and encouraging children to stay in school. The row erupted after West Bengal's recently elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government said meal preparation for schools run by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation would be handed to International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon), the Hindu group best known as the Hare Krishna movement. Meals will be prepared by Iskcon's Annamitra Foundation, which serves only vegetarian food, replacing eggs with other sources of protein, an Iskcon official said last week. The project has not yet begun and it is unclear whether it will be expanded to other schools. Iskcon told the B