Kartik NIjhawan,
When Anna Hazare was busy
protesting against corruption through his Anshan, all Indians were busy
watching his daily routine. The media was full of how much weight he has
lost, how his eyes have sunken or how his voice was dipping or not
dipping. What the mainstream media failed to focus on was another huge
news story that perhaps should have been reported with far more vigour.
This was the postponement of the ‘NATIONAL FOOD SECURITY BILL’ from the
Monsoon session to Winter Session of Parliament. The National Advisory
Council had suggested to cover 90% of rural area and distributing 4kg
grain per head every month but the government decreased it to 75% rural
area and 3kg grain per head.
Earlier,
despite the Supreme Court pointing in this direction, the government
had failed to ensure distribution of surplus food grains even as huge
stocks were rioting in FCI godowns under tarpaulin sheets.
It
is time to improve our PDS system remove the massive corruption in
distribution system. In a country like India where thousands die of
hunger, hundreds of tons of food grain are lying in the open to rot.
Just in Punjab, 55,000 metric tonnes of food grains became unfit for
humans. It is sad that in a country where millions go hungry every day,
we would have to wait for someone like Anna to go hungry for a few days
to draw our attention to the problem that has gone out of fashion in
newspapers, but not in life: Starvation.
0 comments:
Post a Comment