Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 150
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Deprecated (16384): The ArrayAccess methods will be removed in 4.0.0.Use getParam(), getData() and getQuery() instead. - /home/brlfuser/public_html/src/Controller/ArtileDetailController.php, line: 151
 You can disable deprecation warnings by setting `Error.errorLevel` to `E_ALL & ~E_USER_DEPRECATED` in your config/app.php. [CORE/src/Core/functions.php, line 311]
Warning (512): Unable to emit headers. Headers sent in file=/home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php line=853 [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 48]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 148]
Warning (2): Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/brlfuser/public_html/vendor/cakephp/cakephp/src/Error/Debugger.php:853) [CORE/src/Http/ResponseEmitter.php, line 181]
LATEST NEWS UPDATES | If India Produces More Foodgrains Than It Needs, Why Are People Still Starving? -Aditi Goyal

If India Produces More Foodgrains Than It Needs, Why Are People Still Starving? -Aditi Goyal

Share this article Share this article
published Published on Aug 13, 2018   modified Modified on Aug 13, 2018
-TheWire.in

It is set law that procedures cannot impact vested substantive rights – and the right to life and correspondingly, food, is the most substantive of all rights.

“After a prolonged decline, world hunger appears to be on the rise again”, claims  a report titled ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (2017)’ by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN. Nowhere is this more true than in India, which is home to 190.7 million undernourished people, the most in any country. While this may seem like a fantastic claim in the context of the fastest growing economy in the world, here are some statistics from the report:

–14.5% of the Indian population is under-nourished

–47.5 million Indian children under five years of age are stunted – again, the most in any country in the world

–51.4% of Indian women of reproductive age (15-49 years) suffer from anaemia

–64.9% of Indian women (the highest proportion in the world) rely exclusively on breastfeeding for feeding infants between 0-5 months of age

These numbers certainly tell a story – but numbers are, by definition, abstract concepts. Putting a face to this story may help – or faces, in this case. A few days ago, three sisters (Mansi (8), Shikha (4), Parul (2)) in Delhi’s Mandawali area died of starvation. Amita Saxena, the medical superintendent of Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital, told NDTV that “….there was not a speck found in the stomach, bladder and rectum of the children……it looked like they had not eaten since eight-nine days”.

This is not an isolated incident – in October last year, 11-year old Santoshi, in Jharkhand, died of starvation when her mother’s ration card was cancelled after she failed to link it to Aadhaar. In another recent occurrence, Rajendra Birhor, a 40-year-old tribal man in Jharkhand died of starvation, as his family did not have a ration card. His death followed that of Chintamani Malhar, another 40-year-old in the same district who had died of starvation a couple of weeks earlier.

Apart from hunger, there is another common thread that runs through all these deaths – the claims of authorities that the deaths were caused due to “illness”. In Santoshi’s case, the mother, Koili Devi, was threatened that her deceased daughter’s body would be dug up and cut open for post mortem, if she continued to insist that her daughter died of starvation. Scroll reported that Koili Devi displayed unusual resilience when she rationalised, “Now that my daughter is dead, how does it matter what anyone does with her body?”

Why is this happening in a country which supposedly produces more food than it needs? According to the World Economic Forum, India needs approximately 230 million tonnes of food per year to feed its population – and India’s foodgrain output in 2016-2017 was a record 273.3 million tonnes.

Rats may be one answer. Sharad Pawar, former union agriculture minister, once told Parliament that nearly 40% of the value of annual production of food in India is wasted, with crops left to rot in the sun without storage or transportation, or eaten by insects and rats.

According to an RTI reply given by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution, 61,824 tonnes of foodgrains were damaged in the godowns of the Food Corporation of India between 2011-12 and 2016-17, enough to feed an estimated eight lakh people for an entire year.

The Indian government is reportedly trying to resolve these issues through newer distribution strategies, use of technology, improvement of cold chain facilities and tie-ups with private players.

However, these measures, even if implemented, would still not be sufficient to put food in the mouths of Santoshi, Parul, Shikha and Mansi, for the issue runs deeper than a lack of infrastructural facilities.

Please click here to read more.

TheWire.in, 12 August, 2018, https://thewire.in/rights/if-india-produces-more-foodgrains-than-it-needs-why-are-people-still-starving


Related Articles

 

Write Comments

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

Video Archives

Archives

share on Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Feedback
Read Later

Contact Form

Please enter security code
      Close