The Republic Of Hunger
Facts:
“Every third malnourished child in the world is from India.
More than 40 per cent of India's 61 million children are malnourished.
Malnutrition, classroom hunger and school dropout rates continue to be grave, giving rise to extreme poverty and hunger.
47% of those under three years old are undernourished and underweight
Measured by the prevalence of malnutrition, India is doing worse than sub-Saharan Africa.
In recent years the GDP has grown at nearly 10% each year.
By 2011 there were 57 billionaires in India.”
India’s Premier Manmohan Singh called this malnutrition, hunger and poverty “a national shame”. The Premier then noted that “We cannot hope for a healthy future with a large number of malnourished children”.
Dr. Manmohan Singh’s worries and concerns are noted and appreciated. But, here we need to be more precise, if we wish to move away from hollow words to real action, which is surely needed if countries such as India wish to eradicate poverty, hunger and malnutrition. Dr. Singh’s reputation was forged in his time as finance minister in the 1990s, when following the advice of International Monetary Fund he pushed through a series of economic liberalisation and reforms which set the stage for India's subsequent boom and entry onto the world stage as a rising economic power.
The Questions:
Given the above, one might, with much justification, ask what have been the fruits of the decades of embracing neo-liberalism, with is privatisation, liberalisation, deregulation, marketisation and more? What is the use of India boasting the rise of millionaires and billionaires, the high-tech industries and more, when a huge percentage of its children are hungry, malnourished, and underweight? Where is the trickle-down effect? 10% average GDP growth rate for what? What has happened to Indian spirituality, looking after the community and the common good?
Dr. Singh once said: "The greatness of democracy is that we are all birds of passage. We are here today, gone tomorrow. But in the brief time that the people entrust us with this responsibility it is our duty to be honest and sincere in the discharge of these responsibilities."
I very much wonder how he can reconcile the above statement with so much continuing and worsening poverty, hunger, and malnutrition in India.
I very much recommend you to watch this informative video:
The Republic Of Hunger
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2012/05/201251010473237279.html#.T69J2A_f4jE.gmail