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)

Dharavi

Dharavi, the teeming slum of one million souls, where as many as 18,000 people crowd into a single acre. By nightfall, deep inside the maze of narrow lanes the slum is as still as a verdant glade. Once you get accustomed to sharing 300 sq. ft. of floor with 15 humans and an uncounted number of mice, a strange sense of relaxation sets in—ah, at last a moment to think straight. It is Asia's largest slum and lies on prime property right in the middle of India's financial capital, Mumbai.

Many here are second and third-generation residents, whose parents moved in years ago. Today's Dharavi bears no resemblance to the fishing village it once was. A city within a city, it is one unending stretch of narrow dirty lanes, open sewers and cramped huts. The residents - the Kumbhars came from Gujarat to establish a potters' colony. Tamils arrived from the south and opened tanneries. Thousands traveled from Uttar Pradesh to work in the booming textile industry. The result is the most diverse of slums, arguably the most diverse neighborhood in India's most diverse city. In a city where house rents are among the highest in the world, Dharavi provides a cheap and affordable option to those who move to Mumbai to earn their living. Rents here can be as low as Rs. 185 per month.

Dharavi also has a large number of thriving small-scale potteries and textile industries. In addition to these, there is an increasingly large recycling industry, processing waste from other parts of Mumbai. It has an estimated 15, 000 single-room factories, with an approximate annual turnover of more than Rs. 3000 crores a year.

But Dharavi lacks basic infrastructure facilities like sanitation and health. As of November 2006, there was only one toilet per 1,440 residents. Mahim Creek, a local river, is widely used by local residents for urination and defecation, leading to the spread of contagious disease. The area also suffers from problems with inadequate water supply.

An urban redevelopment plan is proposed for the Dharavi area. The plan involves the construction of 30,000,000 sq. ft. of housing, schools, parks and roads to serve the existing 57,000 families residing in the area, along with 40,000,000 sq. ft. of residential and commercial space for sale. There has been significant local opposition to the plans, largely because existing residents are due to receive only 225 sq. ft. of land each. Furthermore, only those families who lived in the area before the year 2000 are slated for resettlement. Concerns have also been raised by residents who fear that some of their small businesses in the "informal" sector may not be relocated under the redevelopment plan. The government has said that it will only legalize and relocate industries that are not "polluting."

It is now up to time to decide what will be the future of Dharavi and its millions of dependents.

(Article excerpted from articles by NGC, BBC & Wikipedia)