University Preparatory Certificate, CPS, NU Astana. Hunger continues to be a critical issue in many parts of the world

Hunger continues to be a critical issue in many parts of the world. Evaluate one solution to deal with this problem in a specific country or area.

(Preparatory Project, Final)

Yerassyl Balkybek

Tutor: P. Skinner

Date of submission: 06 January 2014

Word count: 1061

University Preparatory Certificate, CPS, NU Astana

India is the seventh largest country by area and it takes the second place for the amount of population throughout the world. Moreover, it has achieved many successes since it got its independence in 1947 and it has impressed the world with its economic growth. Today, India is home to about 1.2 billion people, however, some of them (about 400 million people) live in poverty. Many scientists claim that India’s economic achievements have not reduced the poverty and hunger. There has been done many attempts from the government but most of them did not reach to its goal because of the corruption, negligence of district officials or other unexpected cases. (Saxena, 2002). In these cases India needs an agency to control the processes of implementations of all programs and projects which are created by the government officials (Virmani, 2006). Moreover, it can also deal with the all problems related to starvation, including the unreported ones, corruption and other organisations that are useless to the current occasions which just waste money.

The necessity of an agency is that, in India, there are a lot of unsolved problems related to the hunger, which can be solved easily, such as the implementations of projects, corruptions and emergency situations such as flood, drought and uncontrolled population growth and others. Moreover, the territory of India is very huge and the distribution of population is not uniform and the government is not aware from some starvation situations (Banik, 2011). In this cases agency will have its filial branches at all regions of India, especially where the starvation is dominating, and its head office will be set up at the capital.

One the most important problem of India is the realisations of the programs which are affirmed by the government. The main problems of realisations of programs refer to their conformity to the targeted region or area. According to N.C.Saxena (2002) some programs such as “Targeted Public Distribution System” , “PDS” did not achieve to their goals, because these projects was not considered in detail that this projects was not appropriate to all regions of India and life conditions of populations. Consequently, these projects were failed and funds which are allocated for these projects were corrupted by the district officials or were beneficial only for the bureaucrats of those regions where these projects failed. It can be done better if projects like those be considered firstly by the regional filial branches that are these projects relevant to the targeted region.

One of the weakest sides of India is that its communication system, especially roads between the states are not developed appropriately to its large territory including its huge number of people. For instance, in case of drought, that leads to hunger in one area or region, other regions cannot help easily because of underdeveloped communication. According to Dan Banik (2006) in some remote districts many starvations have been unreported and government is not aware from such starvations. Moreover, some scientists tried to go to those remote districts and explore the main causes of starvation, however, most of them could not do it because of underdeveloped roads and communication system. In this case, regional filial branch of agency will have steady scientists and they will do all researching works.

According to Dan Banik (2011), in India many “starvation deaths” have been happening because of the negligence of the district officials. “District officials in India seldom attempt to monitor the nutritional status of vulnerable groups and devote little effort to gathering information on landlessness, out-migration, the distressed sale of assets, or the exploitative practices of moneylenders. Worst of all, however, officials at all levels, although they readily accept the widespread presence of “malnutrition” in their jurisdictions, refuse to admit that death by “starvation” takes place.” (Banik, 2011). Furthermore, Dan Banik claims that the money which are funded for the poor regions do not reach to their main goals and in some causes they are failing or corrupted somehow. After that district officials justifies themselves that they did not get funds on time. Moreover, the opposition parties intervene with their complaints making this controversy much complicated. But this is not just the district officials’ blame. It can be also the weaknesses of the centre. These and other problems like these will be considered between filial branches and the central head office of agency. Nevertheless, this agency will control the use of these funds that these funds are properly utilizing or not. Moreover, the work of this agency will alleviate the works of officials.

The number of people who live in India has grown dramatically. According to the general statistics, in 1950, the population of the India was about 400 million, also this number became nearly to 680 million in 1980 and after 2000 it exceeded one billion. It is important that unless thoroughly controlling the population growth and limiting its increase the hunger may be continued, even it can be much worsened. It will be managed by the regional filial branches of the agency. Moreover, Chinese policy of controlling the growth of population (“One child per family policy”) may be beneficial for India, because, this policy was tested and has given expected results that due to this method, the high speed of population growth of China has been decreased (Hilali, 1997). Today, China is become a great government and impressed all over the world with its achievements.

However, there may be some difficulties for organise this Agency. First of all, it may need a huge amount of money. Secondly it needs many well qualified specialists in this area. Moreover, the vitality of this agency is not clear, because, such governmental organisation was not existed in the history of India, which is against to the hunger.

In conclusion, this solution may be useful for India. Because, this agency will do everything related to the hunger, moreover, it may develop Indian economy and make the life of Indian nation better. It may be proved that without any controls those situations any operations and little accomplishments are not robust and useless. Because the territory of India is very large and not well distributed that is very unsustainable. The republic agency will control all these main problems which are considered before. India has a sufficient power that can deal with these problems itself, by only one agency it can decrease its dreadful starvation (Virmani, 2006).

Reference list

Banik, Dan. 2011.”Growth and Hunger in India”. Journal of Democracy 22, Number 3, July 2011, pp. 90-104 (Article)

Clark, Colin. 2009. “Extent of Hunger in India”, Economic and Political Weekly, Page 2019 of 2019+2021-2027 (Article)

Hilali, A.Z. "Chinese Population Growth: Policy and Prospects." China Report 33.1 (1997): 1-34.

Jiali Li. "Chinese One-Child Policy: How and How Well Has It Worked?" Population and Development Review 21.3 (1995): 563-585.

Saxena, N.C. 2002. “Food Assistance Programmes and Their Role in Alleviating Poverty & Hunger in India”, www.righttofoodindia.org

Saxena, N.C. 2012. “Food Security and Hunger in India”. Journal of the National Human Rights Commission 11, pp: 53-54(Article)

Virmani, Arvind.2006. “Poverty and Hunger in India: What is Needed to Eliminate Them.” The Pakistan Development Review 45:2, pp 241-259 (Article)