India's medals tally is at an all-time high. So is its global hunger ranking.
Unlike the Commonwealth Games, there are no last-minute fixes for the latter. Can the new icons help?
Unlike the Commonwealth Games, there are no last-minute fixes for the latter. Can the new icons help?
October 11, 2010, was a day of glory, hope and shame for India. It was a day India touched -and would soon top -its best-ever medals tally at the Commonwealth Games. It was a day the money poured over 2010 into India by foreign institutional investors was set to touch a record R100,000 crore (or $21 billion). It was a day India was ranked 67 of 84 countries in a global hunger index.
The medals harvest cheered India like nothing else.
New sporting heroes, particularly women, emerged from every corner of emerging India. We stopped ranting against that symbol of old India, Suresh Kalmadi, and started raving about the new, like Deepika Mahato, gold medallist in archery and daughter of a Ranchi auto driver. We were right in celebrating the few hundred sportsmen and women who made the long journey from backwater to big stage, from penury to plenty. They had new stories for us, and we wanted to hear them, to be inspired, to feel good.
New sporting heroes, particularly women, emerged from every corner of emerging India. We stopped ranting against that symbol of old India, Suresh Kalmadi, and started raving about the new, like Deepika Mahato, gold medallist in archery and daughter of a Ranchi auto driver. We were right in celebrating the few hundred sportsmen and women who made the long journey from backwater to big stage, from penury to plenty. They had new stories for us, and we wanted to hear them, to be inspired, to feel good.
But there are older stories that we do not like to hear.
India's latest hunger ranking, delivered by the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington D.C., did not make it to television news. In the newspapers, it was buried, just another bad news story in a nation that, increasingly, does not like to hear such news.
The IFPRI's Global Hunger index ranks India in the `alarming' group (the categories: moderate, serious, alarming and extremely alarming), below many failed States ruled by tyrants and despots. The ranking considers the number of children under five who are underweight, malnourished or wind up dead, particularly girls.
In Asia, everyone, except Bangladesh, which is just one rank below India, is doing better. China is at number nine, Pakistan at 59, Nepal at 56. India is bested by a host of tottering States, including Guinea-Bissau, Togo, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.
Hunger is particularly inconvenient bad news. Unlike an ill-prepared Games pulled together at the last minute, there are no last-minute fixes.
Lets just hope for actions by our government for the same task.
2 stones hit me....wanna throw more??:
can't say anything... a while back I heard the newspapers and the channels shouting about grain getting rotten at government godowns. What more to say...
yeah right
Post a Comment