Authors: Ishani Ghosh & Praveen Nahar
This research reflects on the wicked problem of malnutrition in India by a case study of an academic project carried out in National Institute of Design, India titled ‘Bridging the Great Indian Hunger Divide through Systems Thinking and Design’. The project is an inquiry into the perplexing ubiquity of hunger, poverty and malnutrition in a fast growing economy like India. This project is an attempt to understand and analyse the multi-dimensional complexity of the myriad branches of the food system in India and the various components that back it. The key questions was- ‘How can the Indian food system be designed to ensure food security?’ The project built upon the principles of system thinking to understand the various opportunity areas for intervention.With a vision of a nourished India, the project concluded with the mapping of opportunities across all dimensions and conceptualisation of possible interventions that can bolster the existing system.