India considering a constitutional right to food, a monthly 77 pound bag

[Liberal_in_LA]

India Asks, Should Food Be a Right for the Poor?

Published: August 8, 2010

JHABUA, India — Inside the drab district hospital, where dogs patter down the corridors, sniffing for food, Ratan Bhuria’s children are curled together in the malnutrition ward, hovering at the edge of starvation. His daughter, Nani, is 4 and weighs 20 pounds. His son, Jogdiya, is 2 and weighs only eight.


Landless and illiterate, drowned by debt, Mr. Bhuria and his ailing children have staggered into the hospital ward after falling through India’s social safety net. They should receive subsidized government food and cooking fuel. They do not. The older children should be enrolled in school and receiving a free daily lunch. They are not. And they are hardly alone: India’s eight poorest states have more people in poverty — an estimated 421 million — than Africa’s 26 poorest nations, one study recently reported.

For the governing Indian National Congress Party, which has staked its political fortunes on appealing to the poor, this persistent inability to make government work for people like Mr. Bhuria has set off an ideological debate over a question that once would have been unthinkable in India: Should the country begin to unshackle the poor from the inefficient, decades-old government food distribution system and try something radical, like simply giving out food coupons, or cash?

The rethinking is being prodded by a potentially sweeping proposal that has divided the Congress Party. Its president, Sonia Gandhi, is pushing to create a constitutional right to food and expand the existing entitlement so that every Indian family would qualify for a monthly 77-pound bag of grain, sugar and kerosene. Such entitlements have helped the Congress Party win votes, especially in rural areas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/09/world/asia/09food.html?_r=1&hpw

[uncommon]

1. Just reading the beginning of that made me cry...

there is no excuse.

Every human being should, at the absolute least, have enough food to survive. We do better for prisoners for christ's sake.

[freeplessinseattle]

12. a 2 year old cat weighs more than 8 lbs!

I can't even imagine. It's heartbreaking.

How lucky I am

[Liberal_in_LA]

18. My cat weighs almost twice that!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. I hope this proposal passes.

Not only would it help these people who hover on the edges of society, but it would provide a powerful example for other countries...


Recommended.

[Richard D]

3. Sugar?

Why? What about grains and pulses. At least that's a full protein.

[Liberal_in_LA]

5. many NGOs are now serving a peanut paste meal. Kids really thrive on it.

[SoCalDem]

11. Plumpy-nut is the name

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut

The Plumpy'nut product is a high protein and high energy peanut-based paste in a foil wrapper. It tastes slightly sweeter than peanut butter. It is categorized by the WHO as a Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF).

Plumpy’nut requires no water preparation or refrigeration and has a 2 year shelf life making it easy to deploy in difficult conditions to treat severe acute malnutrition. It is distributed under medical supervision, predominantly to parents of malnourished children where the nutritional status of the children has been assessed by a doctor or a nutritionist. The product was inspired by the popular Nutella spread.<1> It is manufactured by Nutriset, a French company based in Normandy Rouen for use by humanitarian organisations for food aid distribution. The ingredients are: peanut paste, vegetable oil, powdered milk, powdered sugar, vitamins, and minerals, combined in a foil pouch. Each 92g pack provides 500 kcal or 2.1 MJ.<2>

Plumpy'nut contains vitamins A, B-complex, C, D, E, and K, and minerals calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, zinc, copper, iron, iodine, sodium, and selenium.

[uncommon]

6. They probably figure they can make bread that will not taste

like cardboard?

It shouldn't be the main thing by any means, but sugar has long been part of the human diet and an integral part of much cooking.

I would push for more beans myself if it were up to me. Inexpensive, easy storage, and nutritionally dense.

[Richard D]

15. Traditional Indian flatbreads . . .

. . . don't contain sugar. They do often contain clarified butter, or are fried in it.

In India sugar is used in sweets and tea, not a whole lot else. It's only been a major part of the diet there since the British rule.

Traditional Indian diet is heavily based on rice, chapaties (flat bread, sort of like a tortilla but made of wheat), lentils, ghee (clarified butter) and dairy in the form of fresh cheese, yogurt, vegetables, and sweets.

I hope that the allotment of grains mentioned above does contain some of the various forms of protein rich pulses common in the Indian diet. A diet of simply grains and sugar would be slower starvation, unless of course kerosene has some nutritional values I don't know about.

[closeupready]

7. Sugar is a refined carbohydrate that is easily digested, and

provides energy. It's not the best source perhaps, but it will sustain cheaply.

[Chulanowa]

4. Basic nutrition and clean water needs to be a right for all people everywhere

In fact i believe those two, along with shelter are the basics of human rights according to the United Nations.

[Confusious]

8. Potatoes, grain and sugar

All the shit you need right there.

[oneshooter]

9. Unless you are diabetic. n/t

[SoCalDem]

13. I'm guessing that India has more malnourished than diabetics

:( especially in the kids & elderly

[joeybee12]

10. India should be applauded for trying to grapple with this problem...and the USA?

Gee, I don't see any leaders making any such proposals.

[stray cat]

14. Food stamps, WIC? it beats a bag of wheat

[JI7]

17. we already have it, food stamps

[earth mom]

16. This is so sad but what really made my jaw drop was-421 million!

That is more than the entire population of the U.S.A!

:cry: