One out of every four Indians today is a victim of hunger. And half of the hungry are farmers who cannot eat what they grow, either because they are planting cash crops such as cotton; or they're growing costly crops such as rice, wheat and corn, which they have to sell in order to repay the loans they get to buy seeds, fertilisers, etc.
“A hungry world is a dangerous world,” a spokesman of the World Food Programme said “without food, people have only three options: They riot, they emigrate or they die. None of these are acceptable options.”
Commentators note that in the 1990s, when India began to move towards a free market, the Naxalite movement revived in some of the poorest and most populous Indian states. Part of the reason for this is that some livelihood and living-related issues like agriculture, public health, education and poverty-eradication have been given a short shrift, exposing large sections of the population to disease, debt, hunger and starvation.
India ranked 66th on the 2008 Global Hunger Index of 88 countries. India has the highest number of undernourished people in the world — 230 million — added to which 1.5 million children are at risk of becoming malnourished because of rising global food prices. More than 27 per cent of the world’s undernourished population lives in India, of whom 43 per cent children (under five years) are underweight. The figure is higher than the global average of 25 per cent and even beats sub-Saharan Africa’s figure of 28 per cent. Nearly 50 per cent of child deaths in India occur due to malnutrition.
India has a terrible record in tackling hunger and malnutrition. Since independence, the government has formulated more than 50 programmes targeting the poor to alleviate poverty. The real challenge facing India today is making wealth and entitlements not a monopoly of a clique of super elites. Amartya Sen has repeatedly pointed out how the ‘very poor’ in India get a small share of the cake that information technology and related developments generate.
“A hungry world is a dangerous world,” a spokesman of the World Food Programme said “without food, people have only three options: They riot, they emigrate or they die. None of these are acceptable options.”
Commentators note that in the 1990s, when India began to move towards a free market, the Naxalite movement revived in some of the poorest and most populous Indian states. Part of the reason for this is that some livelihood and living-related issues like agriculture, public health, education and poverty-eradication have been given a short shrift, exposing large sections of the population to disease, debt, hunger and starvation.
India ranked 66th on the 2008 Global Hunger Index of 88 countries. India has the highest number of undernourished people in the world — 230 million — added to which 1.5 million children are at risk of becoming malnourished because of rising global food prices. More than 27 per cent of the world’s undernourished population lives in India, of whom 43 per cent children (under five years) are underweight. The figure is higher than the global average of 25 per cent and even beats sub-Saharan Africa’s figure of 28 per cent. Nearly 50 per cent of child deaths in India occur due to malnutrition.
India has a terrible record in tackling hunger and malnutrition. Since independence, the government has formulated more than 50 programmes targeting the poor to alleviate poverty. The real challenge facing India today is making wealth and entitlements not a monopoly of a clique of super elites. Amartya Sen has repeatedly pointed out how the ‘very poor’ in India get a small share of the cake that information technology and related developments generate.
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