YEAR is 2007…. THOUGHT is "Yeah! We are cruising through the path of development." But the harsh REALITY is that we lack Food Security. Yes, we lack the security of that food which is one of the basic requirements of life.
India at present finds itself in the midst of a paradoxical situation: endemic mass-hunger coexisting with the mounting food grain stocks. The food grain stocks available with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) stand at an all time high of 62 million tonnes against an annual requirement of around 20 million tonnes for ensuring food security. Still, an estimated 200 million people are underfed and 50 million on the brink of starvation, resulting in starvation deaths. The paradox lies in the inherent flaws in the existing policy and implementation bottlenecks.
The problem of chronic food insecurity is primarily associated with poverty. Some 200 million people in India are still denied access to sufficient quantities of food. Hunger is not a result of shortage of food, but lack of economic access. The immediate strategy to overcome this problem should be to raise the purchasing power of the poor by generating employment opportunities while the long-term strategy should be to improve food availability and raise incomes.
Food security describes a situation in which people do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. And for this we need to provide employment to people. Every individual has the power to earn on his own. There are so many willing people today who are pleading for jobs, they want to utilize the power of their hands and earn. The situation is now quite demanding and it is solely required of the government that they provide employment opportunities to the people so that they may earn and feed themselves. We can be secure only when food security is there in the nation. Otherwise food insecurity will surely lead to our insecurity as "Hunger can lead a human to any inhuman extent." And if they do something wrong then it will surely be directed against us and not against any inhabitant of some other planet.
Oxygen … a movement View
India at present finds itself in the midst of a paradoxical situation: endemic mass-hunger coexisting with the mounting food grain stocks. The food grain stocks available with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) stand at an all time high of 62 million tonnes against an annual requirement of around 20 million tonnes for ensuring food security. Still, an estimated 200 million people are underfed and 50 million on the brink of starvation, resulting in starvation deaths. The paradox lies in the inherent flaws in the existing policy and implementation bottlenecks.
The problem of chronic food insecurity is primarily associated with poverty. Some 200 million people in India are still denied access to sufficient quantities of food. Hunger is not a result of shortage of food, but lack of economic access. The immediate strategy to overcome this problem should be to raise the purchasing power of the poor by generating employment opportunities while the long-term strategy should be to improve food availability and raise incomes.
Food security describes a situation in which people do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. And for this we need to provide employment to people. Every individual has the power to earn on his own. There are so many willing people today who are pleading for jobs, they want to utilize the power of their hands and earn. The situation is now quite demanding and it is solely required of the government that they provide employment opportunities to the people so that they may earn and feed themselves. We can be secure only when food security is there in the nation. Otherwise food insecurity will surely lead to our insecurity as "Hunger can lead a human to any inhuman extent." And if they do something wrong then it will surely be directed against us and not against any inhabitant of some other planet.
Oxygen … a movement View
2 comments:
Only a Hunger free society can and should expect its people to act morally or responsibly. Living in pain of hunger every day can in no way drive one towards the importance of education. Only when we can secure the need of food evryday can we make our people aware of other causes of development
Every day when I dream of India I see a vast, diverse beautiful country but then the hungry, teeming faces of children come in front of me. In India more than 30%children are born underweight. Many have no access to proper meals. How can we imagine the future of a country when it’s future has to sleep hungry. The leaders of the country should take steps to provide food to the hungry people through properly planned policies.
On our part we the students observe fast on every Monday evening as a protest to the prevailing hunger, uneducation and to conserve the grain. We request you to join us and make this non-violent protest the largest so the next time I dream I see the smiling faces of children.
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