Home to a booming tech industry, home to the youth looked upon with
great hopes, INDIA, home to the
highest number of malnourished children in the world, the very same country, ranked
100th out of 119 on the Global Health Index.
The death of Santoshi Kumari, from the
Karimati village of Simdega district of Jharkhand on the 28th of September
2017 is undoubtedly a painful reminder to every citizen of India, that there
are a lot of families who can’t afford to have 1 straight meal a day. Unlike
most of us, who yearn for the holidays, to escape from the burden of teachers
and schoolwork, for her, being at school would have provided her with at least
the midday meal.
Santoshi, a 11 year old was at home for the Durga Puja holidays. In
the absence of school, it had been about a week without a proper meal for her.
Local news reports as well as independent investigations by different organisations
suggest that the ration dealer of the same locality had denied them rations for
the past 6 months, since their ration card had not been linked to their Aadhar
number. Reports state how activists raised the issue of deleted ration cards,
but as usual the proceedings were delayed, the reason being improper working of
the online portal. This only highlights the fact how despite having a lot of
schemes for the betterment of the people many still suffer due to minor
glitches in the implementation of such schemes which result in major negative consequences.
This is not child’s play. Perhaps these schemes will be useful when we realize the fact that one cannot afford to be careless here.
Santoshi’s family is just one example of the thousands of families, who
do not have property, jobs or even a stable income. Despite the locality having
food in the ration shops, a girl died of starvation only because her Aadhaar
number was not linked to the ration card. Would, linking her Aadhaar, have made
her deserve the ration more than she did at the time of death?
What was worse?
Dying from hunger when there was no food available?
Or dying
knowing that thousands waste food while millions don’t have a single meal a
week?
