Food for thought: I hail from India…

 

 

I hail from India - the country which ranks at 66 among 88 in the Global Hunger Index. A nation whose child malnourishment record is worse than that of sub-Saharan Africa. A country now ranking 134 in the United Nations Human Development Index below Bhutan and Laos.

Here, issues of grave national concern get only a couple of stories spanning a modest few inches across three or four columns in newspapers but full pages are devoted to deaths of fashion models.

Here, 836 million Indians (77 per cent of the population) live on Rs. 20 a day or less. (Report by National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector)

Here, the authorities say that ‘there-is-no-money’ to feed the hungry while the country spends Rs. 10,000 crore on a new airport, more than Rs. 40,000 crore for the Commonwealth Games, Rs. 60,000 crore happily lost in the spectrum scam, Rs. 500,000 crore in write-offs under just three heads for the super-rich and the corporate sector in the current government budget. Here, funds for the hungry are hard to come by.

Economists estimate that if rice/wheat were made available to all Indians at Rs. 3 a kilo, it would add Rs.84,399 crore to the food subsidy in coming budgets. That's about one-sixth of the tax write-offs for the wealthy in this year's budget. (Other estimates place the added expenditure each year at no more than Rs. 45,000 crore).

It is the same country that has 49 dollar billionaires in the Forbes list.

I hail from India, the land of the Mahatma.

(Excerpted from (a must read article) Food security — of APL, BPL & IPL by P. Sainath of The Hindu)

IPL – it’s real

I came across this blog post, IPL, Basic Economics & Us, a few days back, while surfing the internet about how IPL is affecting the common man. The ‘phenomenon’ of IPL has gripped the whole nation for the past 3 years with an entire generation from film stars to politicians to you and I involved in it. Everyone wants to be a part of it, the rich men want to buy it, the cricketers want to play it, bloggers like me want to write about it and the common man doesn’t want to miss it either. And yeah, the Bollywood too is not behind in the race.

I am not a great fan of IPL or of cricket for that instance (not that I hate cricket) Actually, IPL is not about cricket at all. It is just another reality show with the world’s finest cricketers as lead actors. The only difference compared to other TV shows is that this reality show is LIVE and is also telecasted on YouTube. No doubt it would be one of the highest grossing shows in television history. Thanks to the amount of money involved.

Now, coming to the article which I read, is by a guy called Buddhiraj. He is not a regular blogger but I liked the only two articles (my kind) he has written so far. In this article he starts off with a story and then goes on to relate economics in IPL to inflation in the country. He also tells about the how the advertising during IPL will (might) influence the prices of day-to-day commodities. It is a short write-up and good read for IPL fans to know that IPL has some serious side effects, other than wasting a few million man-hours.

Read the complete article here. You can also read Buddhi’s other articles on his blog, Buddhi Baptizm.

Forgive me for being blasphemous about IPL and cricket. They are just not my cup of tea.