Eradicate Hunger to be Free of Diseases
This is not the first time that hunger has become newsworthy in India. In post-independent India, though all governments launched a war against hunger, each time hunger won the war. Right from Indira Gandhi’s ‘Garibi Hatao’ to Vajpayee’s ‘Roti Aur Kapda’, political parties have used the promise of hunger eradication for electoral gains. Realizing that it is difficult to mobilize votes around the issue of hunger, the BJP used other emotional issues to reap electoral gains. With political parties understanding that it is easy to win elections by spreading hate instead of distributing food, ‘hunger’ moved to the bottom of the list of priorities of manifestos of political parties. With those claiming to have distributed food to the poor at low prices losing elections and those citing ‘Ram Mandir, Pakistan, Patel statue’ winning elections, governments progressively started reducing funds allocated to the poor.
As a result, the world’s tallest statue has raised its head in the country. Speedy projects are being planned for bullet trains. The foundation stone has been laid to build the Ram Mandir. Preparations are now on to bring to the forefront the controversy around the Krishna temple. All this is being done using the media to make people believe that the country is moving towards becoming a world leader. At the same time, India has performed poorly in the Global Hunger Index (GHI). Last year if India was ranked 102nd in the GHI, this year it has improved its position to the 94th rank. Ironically, neighboring Pakistan is in the 88nd rank. The increase in the number of the hungry people in India has surpassed that in Pakistan. The report has also shown that India’s performance is worse than Bangladesh’s. During the UPA administration, malnutrition rates in India had crossed 45 per cent. Now, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, hunger continues its unstoppable victory march.
The moment India’s poor performance in GHI was announced, several experts started criticizing the government’s neglect towards malnutrition. And as usual, the government is blaming ‘Coronavirus’ for its failures. But the truth is beyond that. For the last ten years, all government programmes have focused on the rich. With the belief that the prosperity of the corporate sector translates to the prosperity of the country, the government has forgotten that the poor are part of the country’s development. This government has adopted global attention and investments in mega projects as its development criterion. The massive Patel statue and bullet train projects are a part of this agenda to attract global attention. Demonetization, GST, and lockdown have weakened the foundation of the Indian economy. The government’s wrong decisions destroyed rural industries, medium sized industries, and the retail economy. Digitization and Aaadhar card deprived the poor of the welfare benefits provided by the government and it became impossible for some of them even to avail themselves of the Public Distribution System (PDS) food grains. The stories of those who died having been deprived of rationed food as they had no Aadhar card were splashed on the front pages of newspapers. With a faulty and inefficient PDS, the government’s new rules directly affected the poor.
Now, the government is citing the excuse of ‘Coronavirus’ for everything. The government is hiding the fact that hunger has been drastically increasing right from the days of demonetization. Natural calamities and epidemics are not new to the world. If the country had cared for its poor, designed the PDS efficiently, prioritized eradication of hunger, the nation need not have feared the Coronavirus. Even when the country was in a state of shock due to the hunger caused by the lockdown, the food grains in godowns were diverted for the purpose of producing sanitizers instead of reducing hunger. Experts have warned that hunger can trigger other diseases even if the Coronavirus disappears from our midst.
Doctors have already said that the Coronavirus is a disease that can spread to others quickly but it is not a deadly virus. If tuberculosis and Coronavirus diseases are compared, a country like India must fear tuberculosis more. The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday that the Coronavirus can destroy the country’s progress in the eradication of tuberculosis in the country. The WHO has expressed anguish that countries like India and South Africa that are most impacted by tuberculosis are diverting the funds allocated for tuberculosis for its battle against the Coronavirus. Even if Coronavirus ceases to exist, India’s health problems will not end. In the future, tuberculosis could become a huge problem due to two reasons. One, with the funds allocated for tuberculosis getting diverted to other services, accessing medicines and treatment would become increasingly difficult for those with tuberculosis. Two, with malnutrition the most important contributing factor for tuberculosis, increasing hunger could aggravate the problem of tuberculosis.
In such a situation, the government should change its dual stand with regard to the consumption of beef that has the benefit of offering maximum proteins. People affected due to the lack of food and suffering hunger pangs should have easy access to beef. The rest can be exported. The government’s acceptance of the consumption of beef as an integral part of the food system can lead to the reduction in malnutrition. The criterion for the identification of the poor should change. Comprehensive changes should be made in the distribution of food grains to make sure that food grains reach eligible families instead of letting them rot and consumed by worms in depots. The government should immediately understand that diseases can be won by winning over hunger. Otherwise, forget becoming a world leader, India might become a problem to the world due to the continued spread of diseases such as tuberculosis.
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Trump returns from China; terms meeting with Xi as 'G-2'
Washington (PTI): US President Donald Trump returned from a visit to China, describing his discussions with President Xi Jinping as a meeting of leaders of "two great countries".
Trump landed at the Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on the outskirts of the US capital on Friday evening, claiming to have struck important trade deals, including one for China's purchase of 200 aircraft from Boeing, with a promise for another 750, as well as agreements benefiting the American agriculture sector.
The US President reached here after a brief refuelling stop at Anchorage in Alaska.
“It’s the two great countries. I call it the G-2. This is the G-2. I think it’ll go down as a very important moment in history,” Trump told Fox News in an interview after meeting Xi on Thursday.
The Washington Post reported that Trump’s remarks put China on an equal footing with the US, exactly what Xi had aimed to achieve with the visit.
“Over two days of meetings here, the carefully choreographed pageantry and the reciprocal gestures of friendship and respect between the world’s two most powerful men displayed a geopolitical dynamic that the Chinese have long craved and Americans had resisted," the Post said.
Trump told Fox News that the relationship with Xi was important and suggested that China may not resort to any aggressive moves over Taiwan, at least till he is in office.
“It’s not a takeover. They just don’t want to see this place — we’ll call it a place because nobody knows how to define it — but they don’t want to see it go independent,” Trump said.
“I don’t think they’ll do anything when I’m here. When I’m not here. I think they might, to be honest with you,” Trump said.
"I want them to cool down. I want China to cool down," he said.
"We're not looking to have wars, and if you kept it the way it is, I think China's going to be OK with that," he added.
The US President said he had invited Xi for a visit to Washington in September.
“Xi has done something Chinese leaders have been working toward for decades — bringing an American president to Beijing as an undisputed peer,” said Julian Gewirtz, who served as China director on the National Security Council under President Joe Biden.
“Xi used the opulent optics of the visit to make clear to the world that China and the United States are the two dominant, equally matched superpowers. There is no going back.”
Trump’s friendly statements toward Xi and the Chinese people were being amplified in China’s state-controlled media, sending the message that “we’re getting along better with the Americans,” John Delury, a senior Fellow at the Asia Society, was quoted as saying by The New York Times.
It was understandable that Trump wanted to be polite to Xi, but that the American president’s gushing approach “weakens Trump and the US”, R. Nicholas Burns, the ambassador to China during the Biden administration, was quoted as saying in The New York Times.
“Xi did not hesitate to warn Trump over Taiwan. Trump should not hesitate to be frank about our concerns, too,” he said.
Trump and Xi are expected to meet at least three times this year.
The US President has invited Xi to the White House in September.
Trump may travel to Shenzhen in China for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in November. And Xi could come to the G-20 summit in December in Miami.
“This is a summit again that was heavier on symbolism than it was on substance — focus on managing problems, not on solving the problems that exist between the US and China,” said Rush Doshi, former National Security Council deputy senior director for China and Taiwan in the Biden administration.
“The way that both leaders talked about the future indicates that this is going to be part of a process that will play out this year,” said Kurt Campbell, former deputy secretary of State in the Biden administration.
