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Akshaya Patra, Narasimha Das is on its way to feed 169,379 hungry children. A devotee of Lord Krishna Das oversees operations in an industrial-sized kitchen in the Hindu religious town of Vrindaban, on a three-hour tour of New Delhi. While waiting for work, stones in crisis gently entrance to the facility in the shadow of an agile October morning.

It is only 3 in the morning, but the kitchen, run by the Akshaya Patra Foundation, which exudes the warm aroma of freshly baked chapati. Thirty men in overalls and protective mouth and hair in silence the workforce more tons of wheat flour and pasta. Less than five hours to tens of thousands of rounds of flat bread from India that will be charged in heat insulation, vans free of dust and transported to 1,516 schools in and around Vrindavan.

As the cameras of the world focus on India this week with U.S. President Barack Obama made his first visit to New Delhi, scenes like this – and the problems it highlights – they are not able to capture much international attention. Despite the upbeat economy and growing geopolitical influence, India remains home to more malnourished children than any other country, 42% of children with low weight of the world under 5 years living here. An index of hunger in the world published this month by the International Food Policy Research Institute, India ranked number 67 of 84 countries in indicators such as child malnutrition, child mortality and calorie deficiency.
(See photos of changing visual landscape of India.)

It is hardly a new problem. To address the intertwined problems of persistent hunger, child malnutrition and illiteracy, India launched the Plan lunch, the largest school lunch program in the world, around the 1960′s. Today, the program draws students 120,000,000 every day throughout the country. Akshaya Patra, a nonprofit organization based in Bangalore is its largest partner organizations, 17 kitchens run through eight states and provide hot meals to more than 1.26 million children every day in their schools. The program aims to feed 5 million children in 2020, describes Obama as a “powerful demonstration of what is possible when people work together,” now running on a model public-private partnership, with 65% of its funding from the government.

Das, president of the operation of Vrindaban, tells TIME Vrindaban kitchen now makes 250,000 cakes, four tons of rice, more than two tons of lentils and between five and six tons of vegetables every morning. The menu, developed with the needs of growing children and local food habits in mind, consists of rice or chapatis and other Indian soup, as daal or Kadhi (a soup made with yogurt and flour), with vegetables and, once week, the dessert.