Re: Hunger and anger

On 10/21/09, manas joardar <manasjoardar@hotmail.com> wrote:

 
 

 

 

                                        Hunger  and  Anger

                                                                                                   Manas Joardar

                         (Published in The Statesman, 16 Oct.,2009)

 

Since 1979, 16 October is being observed as World Food Day in more than 150 countries.  On  this  day the Food and Agriculture Organisation was founded by the United Nations in 1945. The purpose is to raise general awareness about hunger and poverty.

  In the  Millennium Development Goals adopted in 2000, 189 countries promised , inter alia, for eradication of extreme hunger, halving ~ within 2015, with 1990 as the benchmark year ~ the proportion of people living on less than $ 1 a day and also halving malnutrition.

  Millennium Development Goals  Report 2009 however delineates that the number of people leaving in extreme poverty though decreased from 1.8 billion in 1990 to 1.4 billion in 2005, is likely to have gone up by around  75 million during the subsequent years.

     The World Bank had long held an income of $ 1 per day per head  adjusted for each country's  purchasing power parity, as a yardstick for international poverty line. This figure has been revised, since 2008, to   $ 1.25.

  In India, the Planning Commission defined poverty line as one's daily food consumption of 2400 kilo calories in the rural and 2100 kilo calories in urban areas. Those consuming less constitute the Below Poverty Line  (BPL) category. But from the ninth plan period onwards, parameters have been changed.  The Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, constituted an Expert Committee under the Chairmanship of Mr N C Saxena 'to recommend simple and suitable methodology to identify the rural poor.' The committee submitted its report for the BPL Census for the 11^th plan period in August, 2009.

 The Expert Group refuses to buy the Planning Commission's proposition that the percentage of BPL population has decreased from 56 in 1973-74 to 28 in 2004-05. There is no indication of any decline in the number of people consuming less calories than the  BPL norm. Fraction of people living below the 2100/2400 calorie criterion, according to the committee,  is on the rise instead.

 In 1990,  63.2 per cent of the Indian population belonged to this group, which ~  according to the Millennium Development Goals ~ needs to  be reduced to 31.6 per cent in 2015. But the  figure has been going up considerably each year and stood out above 75 per cent during 2004- 2005.

 

Table 1: Calorie-specific BPL Households

 

Year	Rural	Urban	All India
1983	66.1	60.5	64.8
2004-05	79.8	63.9	75.8

 

 

    The  International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has developed the Global Hunger Index (GHI) as a measure of hunger and malnutrition of a country. It is a combination of three equally weighted indicators – undernourished people as a percentage of total population, percentage of underweight children under the age of five years and the mortality rate of under-five children.

 GHI is  calculated from these data on a 100-point scale, 0 being the best score representing no hunger and 100, the worst. GHI values up to 4.9  indicate low hunger, 5 to 9.9 – moderate hunger and   10 to 19.9 – a serious condition. A score between 20 and 29.9 is alarming and anything above 30 is exceedingly alarming.

 

 The table below is an estimate of   the India State Hunger Index (ISHI) computed identically for most of the states of India  by a team of Indian scholars in 2008. Numerically, ISHI is the same as GHI.

Table 2: Hunger Index of Indian States

State	ISHI	Rank	State	ISHI	Rank
Punjab	13.64	1	West Bengal	22.17	9
Kerala	17.66	2	Karnataka	22.33	10
Andhra pradesh	19.54	3	Orissa	23.74	11
Assam	19.85	4	Maharashtra	23.79	12
Haryana	20.01	5	Gujrat	24.69	13
Uttar Pradesh	20.88	6	Chattisgarh	26.65	14
Tamil Nadu	20.99	7	Bihar	27.30	15
Rajasthan	21`.00	8	Jharkhand	28.67	16
India	23.70		M Pradesh	30.90	17

 

     None of the states of India belongs even to the low or moderate hunger index  group. Problem everywhere is either serious or alarming. For Madhya Pradesh, it is  exceedingly alarming.

  In GHI score India occupies 66^th position among 88 developing countries. Of all the countries invited this year to attend the G-8 conference as emerging economy, India lags behind all others by a ludicrously big margin on this score.

True, developing countries are being deprived through plundering,  globalization, perverse aid and trade activities and so on. Humanitarian aid, pro-people development, guaranteed food supply, conservation of environment – all this can help alleviation of extreme global poverty to a significant extent. Rich people all over the world can benefit themselves and the hungry world by toning down hedonism and food-wastage.

  India's position could have been much better in the global hunger map, had the fund for social welfare schemes meant for the under-privileged not been mostly usurped/under-utilised by the politician-bureaucrat nexus. Corruption is rampant. Poor farmers and tribals are being displaced in the name of development. India is the second highest arms importer of the world. Huge sum is being spent to stifle ruthlessly the agitation of the angry marginalized. Who will remind our rulers the much-quoted assertion of John Steinback : The line between hunger and anger is a thin line? Another expert group constituted in 2006 by the Planning Commission, of course,  observed in its report "Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas"  on a similar line. But who cares?

 

            (The author is a retired teacher of Applied Physics, Calcutta University )

 

 

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