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Severely malnourished girl Rajni, 2, is weighed by health workers in Madhya Pradesh, India, February 1.
Crying as she is put on an electronic scale, two-year-old Rajini's naked shriveled frame casts a dark shadow over a rising India, where millions of children have little to eat.
The children are scrawny, listless and sick in this run-down nutrition clinic in central India with its intermittent power supply. If they survive they will grow up shorter, weaker and less smart than their better-fed peers.
Rajini weighs 5 kg (11 lb), about half of what she should.
"She's as light as a leaf, this can't be good," says her grandmother, Sushila Devi, poking her rib-protruding stomach in the clinic in Shivpuri district in Madhya Pradesh state.
Almost as shocking as India's high prevalence of child malnutrition is the country's failure to reduce it, despite the economy tripling between 1990 and 2005 to become Asia's third largest and annual per capita income rising to $489 from $96.
1 in 4 children malnourished, global report says
A government-supported survey last month said 42 percent of children under five are underweight - almost double that of sub-Saharan Africa - compared to 43 percent five years ago.
The statistic - which means 3,000 children dying daily due to illnesses related to poor diets - led Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to admit malnutrition was "a national shame" and was putting the health of the nation in jeopardy.
"It is a national shame. Child nutrition is a marker of the many things that are not going right for the poor of India," said Purnima Menon, research fellow on poverty, health and nutrition at the Institute of Food Policy Research Institute.
India's efforts to reduce the number of undernourished kids have been largely hampered by blighting poverty where many cannot afford the amount and types of food they need.
Adnan Abidi / Reuters
Women hold their severely malnourished children as they stand outside the Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre of Shivpuri, Madhya Pradesh, India, February 1.
Poor hygiene, low public health spending and little education and awareness have not helped. Age-old customs discriminating against women such as child marriage have also contributed, but are far harder to tackle, say experts.
In addition, shoddy management of food stocks, subsidized carbohydrate-rich food that fuel and fill the poor rather than truly nourishing them and real shortages in its poorest states have worsened the problem.
At the Shivpuri clinic, health worker Rekha Singh Chauhan tends to emaciated young children in a ward with a ganglion of electrical wires running cross its paint-chipped walls.
"We only have a handful to take care of now, but come April, the cases will shoot up," says Chauhan, adding that diseases such as diarrhea and malaria will cause an influx of sick underweight children with the onset of summer.
"The situation becomes bad. Three children are made to share a bed and many have to sleep on the floor."
That picture jars with an India clocking enviable 8-9 percent growth over the last five years that has put money in the pockets of millions of its people and fuelled demand for everything from cars and computers to clothes and fancy homes.
It has also catapulted the country onto the world stage, boosting its claim for a bigger role on forums such as the U.N. Security Council. This month, it moved closer to buying new fighter jets worth a whopping $15 billion.
Adnan Abidi / Reuters
Four-month-old Vishakha, who weighs 2.3 kg (5 lbs) and suffers from severe malnutrition, rests on a bed next to her mother at the Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre, Shivpuri, Madhya Pradesh, India on February 1.
Yet while the urban middle classes dine in swanky shopping malls where eateries offer everything from sushi to burritos, millions of children are dying due to a lack of food.
Last month's report by the Indian charity Naandi Foundation, the first comprehensive data since a 2005/6 study, said India's "nutrition crisis" is an attributable cause for up to half of all child deaths.
Yet India's public spending on health, estimated at 1.2 percent of its GDP in 2009, is among the lowest in the world.
Remembering India's first woman photojournalist
"This isn't a quick-fix that we're looking at here, it's not a magic bullet," said Jasmine Whitbread, CEO of Save the Children International.
"Not just in India, but in countries around the world, we know that you can't just rely on trickle down. There have to be policies in place, there have got to be political choices that prioritize malnutrition."
In Shivpuri, an impoverished tribal-dominated district in Madhya Pradesh state, that reality is on full display.
The region's malnutrition level for children under five matches the national average, but child mortality rates are worse at 103 deaths per 1,000. The national average is 66 deaths per 1,000, according to U.N. children's agency, Unicef.
Most of the children here are from India's most marginalized and poorest communities, such as tribals and lower castes where literacy is poor and poverty high.
Their mothers are themselves often undernourished, forced into early marriage when they reach puberty, and give birth to underweight babies with weak immune systems.
Illiteracy or lack of awareness takes its toll as well. These mothers do not breastfeed, offering buffalo milk and contaminated water instead and making their children prone to illnesses like diarrhea, which prevents nutrient absorption.
Mostly living on less than $2 a day, these families can hardly afford anything beyond wheat chapatis that are devoid of much-needed protein and other nutrients.
Soapy milk, toxic apples: food safety in India
India's neglect of its young - 48 percent are stunted, 20 percent wasted and 70 percent anemic - will have serious repercussions. The World Bank says malnutrition in the poorest countries slashes around 3 percent from annual economic growth.
In comparison, neighboring China has already achieved its target on malnutrition and under-five child mortality goals as its economic growth has been more broad-based, focusing on health, sanitation and small holder production.
While India has several schemes already running to battle malnutrition, the Indian government is now vaunting a multi-billion-dollar food subsidy program as a possible solution.
But the Food Security Bill, which guarantees cut-price rice and wheat to 63.5 percent of the population may be more a political gimmick, experts worry, than about providing nutritious food to those who need it most.
"The Food Security Bill is a very good development, but it is a food security bill, not a nutrition security bill," said Lawrence Haddad, director of the U.K.-based Institute of Development Studies.
For the children at Shivpuri's nutrition centre, government plans mean little unless they put enough of the right food in their stomachs.
"You see her arms? They are almost the width of my thumb," says Jharna, as she carried her limp, emaciated one-year-old grand-daughter, Sakshi, into the clinic. "She is too weak. She can't even sit by herself."
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If charges of negligent homicide can be brought against government people who call themselves leaders and yet throw up their hands in mock despair not to mention the fathers of these children who most likely abandoned them, then babies would stop dying immediately. I lived in India for three years so know a bit about this.
This is what we shpuld be having wars over, not drugs, and not some country getting nuclear weapon.
India is such an anomaly, a lot of good educational programs, health care, but they are unable to feed their children
They can feed their boys OK but girls are regarded as an curse my old school Indian men.
It has nothing to do with gender... as if America is doing so well
If you actually walked away from your cave and read a book you'd realize that most of the cultures you call backwards etc are actually more accepting and respectful of women than we are here in the US.
In other nations, it is not considered music to write songs about hos and bit$hes.
Of course in America you can do anything stupid and hide under the 1st amendment.
The most distressful part of that is that we have brave soldiers fighting and losing their lives so idiots like you can continue to be unaware and spout your ignorance and hatred.
CommonSense,
We don't force young teenage girls into marriage, really making them no more than sex slaves. When we find the sickos who do (Warren Jeffs) we send them to places that really don't like child abusers.
I am a huge supporter of women's rights, and believe we have a long way to go, but get some perspective.
Common: In The UK they stopped telling parent the gender of the baby as sub continent Asians ( Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi et, al) would terminate if it was a girl.
I have to assume that you have:
a) Never been to the USA (or if you are here live in the backwoods somewhere)
b) Never finished school, & learned to read via text message
C) Have never traveled far from your hovel
I became an American citizen by choice, I have traveled the world since 1966, I had circumnavigated the globe twice before I was 21. I have been to every continent (including Antarctica).
I have worked in areas where female babies are left out to die in the sun after birth, I have done famine relief work where parents will save themselves before their daughters.
I have been associated with both our and NATO fighting forces for many years.
Until you can structure a sentence, string more than 1/2 dozen words together do not insinuate you know anything about this earth, its people or their lifestyles.
...and India tortures their prison inmates, most of whom are there because they can't afford to get out.
They have a nuclear weapons program. I can't be sorry for any country that spends millions of dollars on nuclear weapons while their population starve. What about those cows roaming the streets, stop treating them as something sacred and feed them to the hungry.
Ignorant poor people keep having babies, then they ask others for help.
Time for birth control!
Time for world wide population control.
yeah, vote for Santorum, no more birth control.....
I think if they could afford birth control they could probably afford food.
When I lived there, birth control was advertised continuously and condoms were free of charge and what ended up happening was they charged Indira Gandhi with crimes, partly because she was encouraging people to get themselves vasectomies, tubes-tied, etc... so India is still going to be the population bomb that tips the world into a large abyss.
Time to educate these backward cultures that women have the right to say no to sex and constant breeding. What mother wants her kids to die like this? None do! But delve into every story and you discover this is the 6th, 7th or 8th child. Women's Liberation means women can control their own reproductive rates. These backward, macho-dominated societies see women as worthless, baby-making machines with no individual rights. Educate and protect your girls BEFORE they get pregnant that they have rights.
It has nothing to do with gender... as if America is doing so well
If you actually walked away from your cave and read a book you'd realize that most of the cultures you call backwards etc are actually more accepting and respectful of women than we are here in the US.
In other nations, it is not considered music to write songs about hos and bit$hes.
Of course in America you can do anything stupid and hide under the 1st amendment.
The most distressful part of that is that we have brave soldiers fighting and losing their lives so idiots like you can continue to be unaware and spout your ignorance and hatred.
CommonSense
Come up with something original.
This is unconscionable. Of all the countries I have visited, India is one of the poorest, filthiest, and needs nothing so much as a mandatory birth control policy. If a child like this lives long enough, she will most likely be forced into a pathetic life of begging and/or prostitution. Then, she becomes pregnant and this cycle begins all over again, and it is repeated thousands of times daily in a country that can ill afford it.
Wow Sunpigs,
MANDATORY birth control huh? Is that your answer to solving the "poor epidemic". The poor are always going to be with us. they have the same rights as the wealthy (and they should). If we did away with the desolute poor people, then the middle class would just become the nations "poor".
It has nothing to do with gender... as if America is doing so well
If you actually walked away from your cave and read a book you'd realize that most of the cultures you call backwards etc are actually more accepting and respectful of women than we are here in the US.
In other nations, it is not considered music to write songs about hos and bit$hes.
Of course in America you can do anything stupid and hide under the 1st amendment.
The most distressful part of that is that we have brave soldiers fighting and losing their lives so idiots like you can continue to be unaware and spout your ignorance and hatred.
The poor have the same rights as the wealthy but that doesn't mean they should keep popping out kids that they can ill afford to take care of. The pictures of those starving children make my heart ache.
"These mothers do not breastfeed, offering buffalo milk and contaminated water instead and making their children prone to illnesses like diarrhea, which prevents nutrient absorption."
I wonder why these mothers don't breastfeed? Honestly I have no idea why they won't. Is it a cultural thing? A religious thing? Ignorance? Breast milk is free and except for the occasional case there shouldn't be any reason why a mother can't breast feed their starving baby.
Yikes. Image their population if every newborn survived to reproduction age.
Imagine the population of India increasing by some 45,000 every day as some 70,000 births occur daily.
Imagine the population of the world increasing by some 200,000 every day as some 350,000 are born.
Imagine we can do anything to make it better before it gets incredibly worse.
What lies ahead for planet Earth? Fun times?
Over one year ago I noted on the Vine that we would see even more starvation around the world as climate upheavals droughts etc played havoc with harvests. Given these countries high birth rate growth they are especially prone to starvation as those that do have resources are not willing to share with the poor their food to feed people who will only continue to reproduce without regard to the consequences. The only answer is birth control but in lieu of that, nature will control the population explosion with disease starvation and war. It is very sad to see these children suffer when their parents have absolutely no clue that it is their responsibility to provide for their children and if they do not have the resources to plan for lean times then they should not be having children. I suspect that if birth control was offered to these poor women their husbands would not allow them to take it.
I suspect that if birth control was offered to these poor women their husbands would not allow them to take it.
The women have little to say about what happens to them. There is no place for them to go if they were to leave their husbands. And it's not just the husbands. In many societies, it is the mother-in-law who determines what goes on in her house. Sons and grandsons must, by society rules, take care of her. A daughter-in-law is only good for a drudge and a breeder for more males.
Elk Meadow I am well aware of the patriarchy's role in suppressing women. I am also aware of how male identified women also oppress other women. The suffering will continue as long as women and men cling to the patriarchy's oppressive methods of control through violence and poverty. The saddest part is watching the children suffer with no end in sight. In the coming years we will witness great suffering in the world far beyond what we have previously seen in Africa with hundreds of thousands suffering from starvation war and rape. It will go global in a way that will be overwhelming. I hope I am wrong as to what I see coming.
This is the result of greedy, immoral, and "dog eats dog", "survival of the fittest" capitalism that India seems to have migrated towards. India has lost its moral compass.
I had to do it. Where's the beef? I see the caste system is still alive and well. Birth control would be a good start. If you have seen pictures of their ship breaking operations combined with the starvation of their children you can see a more complete picture of India. As with all tings it goes deeper than just a couple of stories
It has nothing to do with gender... as if America is doing so well
If you actually walked away from your cave and read a book you'd realize that most of the cultures you call backwards etc are actually more accepting and respectful of women than we are here in the US.
In other nations, it is not considered music to write songs about hos and bit$hes.
Of course in America you can do anything stupid and hide under the 1st amendment.
The most distressful part of that is that we have brave soldiers fighting and losing their lives so idiots like you can continue to be unaware and spout your ignorance and hatred.
First birth control must be made available to all Indians and Indian women need the right to use birth control. Next get rid of the caste system. Most of the poorest people with the dying children are members of the low caste. An ignorant and stupid holdover from the 6th century. Set up food banks in these areas and feed the children and their mothers. India has billionaires who live in mansions beyond imagination. Put in a special food tax and take the money to feed the children.
Wow, sounds easy. I wonder why they have not yet done it.
You people don't get it. These parents are not having kids because they don't know about birth control. They are having kids, sometimes as many as 14 of them to one woman, because there is not social security. They have so many kids hoping that maybe half live to become adults and out of that half maybe one will be successful enough to take care of them in their old age. It not about ignorance its about trying to survive.
Young children, the innocent ones suffer the most. This idea of forcing a young girl into a marriage is a big problem in India. We have many from India that now live in America. I hope the mothers tell us on this blog of their knowledge of the problems. I rather hear from them, the one's that truly knows. Instead of hearing it from our media.
this is not a poor country..................they have gold, tons of it...................enough to actually drop the price of gold if they started to sell it worldwide........India your government needs to take the gold and take care of your people, you do it quit asking for help from other countries when you have plenty of 'wealth' right there.
It is unfair that while people are fighting with obesity in U.S, kids are dying because of hunger in India.
How old are you five? Fair is somewhere you get ferris wheel rides and funnel cakes, it has nothing to do with life. We have prospered in this country from hard work, ingenuity, and education. The same has been achieved in many countries around the world. Cultural ignorance, societal seperation, and lack of education are Indias problem along with most of South America, Africa, Indonisia, and the Middle East. No matter what you do these places will never be prosperous because of these attributes. So sending half of your left over cheese burger and fries to some kid in India will not help.
These poor starving children don't even have the tears to weep for their plight. And I have the temerity to weep because I eat too much!
They can spend 15 billion on warfare technology, yet fail to feed their own people...
Sounds familiar for some reason.
It has nothing to do with gender... as if America is doing so well
If you actually walked away from your cave and read a book you'd realize that most of the cultures you call backwards etc are actually more accepting and respectful of women than we are here in the US.
In other nations, it is not considered music to write songs about hos and bit$hes.
Of course in America you can do anything stupid and hide under the 1st amendment.
The most distressful part of that is that we have brave soldiers fighting and losing their lives so idiots like you can continue to be unaware and spout your ignorance and hatred.
The pictures of the starving children is deplorable. Now please fan the cameras to the large modern city hustling and bustling with employed and the wealthy government refusing to spend their own money to help their citizens. It is cheaper to ask the rest of the world to send money monthly than to spend their own.
It has nothing to do with gender... as if America is doing so well
If you actually walked away from your cave and read a book you'd realize that most of the cultures you call backwards etc are actually more accepting and respectful of women than we are here in the US.
In other nations, it is not considered music to write songs about hos and bit$hes.
Of course in America you can do anything stupid and hide under the 1st amendment.
The most distressful part of that is that we have brave soldiers fighting and losing their lives so idiots like you can continue to be unaware and spout your ignorance and hatred.
Amen. Let India worry about India's starving children. It is horribly sad, but the government of India needs to do something about it. I wish another country would pay for American entitlement programs, we would really be a wealthy nation then. When India foots the bill for our Medicaid/ AFDC programs--then we can talk.
I am not for MANDATORY birth control, but educating the women on it wouldn't hurt. Plus educating on breastfeeding and that cow could make a few burgers for the hungrey...just saying...
It has nothing to do with gender... as if America is doing so well
If you actually walked away from your cave and read a book you'd realize that most of the cultures you call backwards etc are actually more accepting and respectful of women than we are here in the US.
In other nations, it is not considered music to write songs about hos and bit$hes.
Of course in America you can do anything stupid and hide under the 1st amendment.
The most distressful part of that is that we have brave soldiers fighting and losing their lives so idiots like you can continue to be unaware and spout your ignorance and hatred.
Whew, I'm so glad all those parents won't go to Hell for practicing birth control. Catholic church has money-send it there. What's more painful, prevention (not abortion) or torture. Don't tell me starving to death is not torture.
i wonder how long before the USA is in this situation? republicans are clamoring to get rid of food stamps, and all support programs, mostly so the rich can be richer, this is the wages of capitalism. if they are elected in November they will get rid of these programs and presto, were India. a lot of this goes back to the pop psychology concept of tough love or 'lets find an excuse not to take responsibility for our own.' in the end you are your brothers keeper whether you want to be or not.
Joe, please provide a link to you information about republicans wanting to end food stamps as I am highly interested.
Thanks
I am sorry, but I guarentee that if foodstamps, housing, and AFDC were gotten rid of maybe some of those government leeches would go find a job and work like the rest of us. I have my own family to feed, and don't mind helping out people that are trying to help themselves. I can't stand the thought of helping out a lazy crack-headed woman that is not good for anything but prostituting herself. I think that the government would save millions if they would give a very strict guideline and timelimit that someone could receive assistance. American children are not going to starve. Keep the free lunches in the schools and have school year round. I do think we should take care of the KIDS, not the able-bodied adults.
All these people that are out there whining about the rich, and comparing theirselves to the wealthy need to take a long hard look at the choices THEY made that could have been better. 40 years old and can't find a job? Go back to school and get the education you need to maintain a decent lifestyle. Wealthy people don't bother me at all. I am by no means rich, but my husband and me support our 5 kids on the incomes we make. We make our payments on time and we go on a vacation every 3 years. It's called SAVING and doing without the latest fad items. Yeah, my kids shop at the malls AND goodwill. They dont have smartphones, they have regular cellphones. My husband worked a full time job, supported us, AND went back to school for his degree.
CANON, look up 'GOP candidates wade into food stamp debate.' this is a no brain er you can deduce from re pub positions that they are opposed to almost all support programs for the poor and middle-class. they believe that these people are not successful because God is opposed to them or they are just trash AND DESERVE TO DIE. CONCERNBYSTUPIDITY, what you describe we all did. have a care for the people you describe in such vicious terms, and God help you if you find yourself in their situations. many of the wealthy in this country are totally greedy and many have bought politicians and achieved much power way past their single vote, through corruption. don't be so sure that American children are not going to starve.
We make decisions every day to assist or not to assist those in need. It seems if natural selection is to run it's course, only the appearance of helping or tolken relief should be provided, maybe just enough to make us feel better. The question seems to be more of how are we effected by staying on the sidelines - are we diminished somehow - do we become more hardened and immune to the suffering and struggle of life or do we work to make a difference... Like watching a fly in a spiderweb or like a heard circling it's calves... It's more like the former, we know that less our kind means more for those still standing.
The flys are everywhere, the spiders few, but once in their web, you're as good as dead.
While that type of horror is going on,India is buying 15 Billion dollars in fighter jets.The military budgets in these 3rd world countries are destroying their societies.India, and the US,Russia,China,Iran,are friendly.Even Pakistan is friendlier,and with all their current problems, even if they weren't it wouldn't matter.So why would India even need more high dollar military hardware.Sadly,its a problem even here.We have the most spending of any nation in the world,by far,on the military.And its always,more,more,and more.
It has nothing to do with gender... as if America is doing so well
If you actually walked away from your cave and read a book you'd realize that most of the cultures you call backwards etc are actually more accepting and respectful of women than we are here in the US.
In other nations, it is not considered music to write songs about hos and bit$hes.
Of course in America you can do anything stupid and hide under the 1st amendment.
The most distressful part of that is that we have brave soldiers fighting and losing their lives so idiots like you can continue to be unaware and spout your ignorance and hatred.
it's becuz of their religion
It has nothing to do with gender... as if America is doing so well
If you actually walked away from your cave and read a book you'd realize that most of the cultures you call backwards etc are actually more accepting and respectful of women than we are here in the US.
In other nations, it is not considered music to write songs about hos and bit$hes.
Of course in America you can do anything stupid and hide under the 1st amendment.
The most distressful part of that is that we have brave soldiers fighting and losing their lives so idiots like you can continue to be unaware and spout your ignorance and hatred.
"It has nothing to do with gender... as if America is doing so well
If you actually walked away from your cave and read a book you'd realize that most of the cultures you call backwards etc are actually more accepting and respectful of women than we are here in the US.
In other nations, it is not considered music to write songs about hos and bit$hes.
Of course in America you can do anything stupid and hide under the 1st amendment.
The most distressful part of that is that we have brave soldiers fighting and losing their lives so idiots like you can continue to be unaware and spout your ignorance and hatred."
Hey CommoSense-2942478....could you re-post that a few more times? I don't think you got your point across yet.
Really? There's a billion + Indians... why are we worrying on 3,000 that are dying whose only contribution was going to be the pollution they'd generate, their excretions, and to feed them even more land would need to be farmed?
If anything the entire worlds needs thinned out as we are 7 billion +. You hit a billion of anything, not one is special. There are 7 billion, that means as a species we are even less special.
Let's quit worrying about a fungus of a species and tend to the dwindling population of other species.
your belief will determine your behaviour!
CommonSense-2942478 If all you are going to do is vomit the same thing over and over again please go to the Media Matters website to post.
Thanks,
Left up to the republicans this could become the scene here in the US within a couple of years. They're already working on it.